arXiv subjects

Neelakantan Padmanabhan

Publications and source records attributed to Neelakantan Padmanabhan.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A Scalable Approach for Transient Thermal Modeling of Automotive Power Electronics

Efficient thermal management is critical for the reliability and performance of power electronics systems in automotive applications. This work presents a computationally efficient modeling approach for transient thermal simulation of power electronic systems, with a focus on inverter modules using multiple MOSFETs mounted on a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA). A case study of an inverter module comprising six MOSFETs arranged as high-side and low-side pairs for a three phases system mounted on a PCBA, attached to a heat sink is considered. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations in Ansys Icepak are performed considering different heat transfer mechanisms, including natural convection, forced convection at constant velocity, and forced convection with varying flow velocity. A transient thermal model is developed using the Lumped Parameter Linear Superposition (LPLSP) method, a hybrid approach that combines lumped parameter modeling with the principle of linear superposition to capture transient thermal behavior efficiently. Temperatures of the components from the simulations are compared with temperatures from the LPLSP model and temperatures from a Linear Time Invariant (LTI) based reduced order model (ROM) developed for this system. It is observed that the LPLSP model is able to model a wide range of use cases very accurately with error of less than 5 %. This method enables rapid thermal performance evaluation of power electronics systems that have very fast transients in component level power dissipation and variations in ambient conditions, making it particularly well-suited for early-stage design iterations and long-duration mission profile simulations. The approach offers a practical path to reducing development cycles for automotive power electronics design.

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arXiv2026

Ensemble Parameter Estimation for the Lumped Parameter Linear Superposition (LPLSP) Framework: A Rapid Approach to Reduced-Order Modeling for Transient Thermal Systems

This work introduces an ensemble parameter estimation framework that enables the Lumped Parameter Linear Superposition (LPLSP) method to generate reduced order thermal models from a single transient dataset. Unlike earlier implementations that relied on multiple parametric simulations to excite each heat source independently, the proposed approach simultaneously identifies all model coefficients using fully transient excitations. Two estimation strategies namely rank-reduction and two-stage decomposition are developed to further reduce computational cost and improve scalability for larger systems. The proposed strategies yield ROMs with mean temperature-prediction errors within 5% of CFD simulations while reducing model-development times to O(10^0 s)-O(10^1 s). Once constructed, the ROM evaluates new transient operating conditions in O(10^0 s), enabling rapid thermal analysis and enabling automated generation of digital twins for both simulated and physical systems.

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arXiv2024

A Transient Thermal Model for Power Electronics Systems

An equation based reduced order model applicable to generalized heat equation and thermal simulations of power electronics systems developed in commercial CFD tools, is presented in this work. The model considers the physics of heat transfer between multiple objects in different mediums and presents a set of equations that can be applied to a wide range of heat transfer scenarios including conduction, natural and forced convection problems. A few case studies including heat transfer in a power electronic system are simulated in Ansys Icepak and the temperatures from the simulations are compared with the temperatures predicted by the models. The models are observed to be highly accurate when compared with the simulations. The predictive model described in this work reduces large complex simulations down to a few parameters which tremendously improves the computation speed, uses very low physical disk space and enables fast evaluation of thermal performance of the system for any changes in the input parameters.

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arXiv2023

Reduced order model of a convection-diffusion equation using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition

In this work, a numerical simulation of 1D Burgers' equation is developed using finite difference method and a reduced order model (ROM) of the simulation is developed using proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). The objective of this work is to provide an introduction of the POD method to researchers interested in computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This work discusses a physical interpretation of the POD method, its strengths and shortcomings and an implementation of the algorithm that may be extended to 2D, 3D Burgers' equation and other non-linear partial differential equations (PDE) of this class, to develop models for more complex systems.

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