Structural Validation and Correlation of Inverter Gasket 2024-01-2744

Inverter is the power electronics component that drives the electrical motor of the electrical driven compressor (EDC) and communicates with the car network. The main function of the inverter is to convert the direct current (DC) voltage of the car battery into alternating current (AC) voltage, which is used to drive the three-phase electric motor. In recent days, inverters are present in all automotive products due to electrification. Inverter contains a printed circuit board (PCB) and electronic components, which are mounted inside a mechanical housing and enclosed by a protective cover. The performance of the electrical drive depends upon the functioning of the inverter. There is a strong demand from the customer to withstand the harsh environmental and testing conditions during its lifetime such as leakage, dust, vibration, thermal tests etc. The failure of the inverter leads to malfunction of the product, hence proper sealing and validation is necessary for inverters to protect the electronic components. Generally, a metallic gasket and rubber gaskets are used as a sealant to protect the electronic components. The influence of design parameters which impact the gasket pressure by selecting the type of screws, number of screws required, minimum distance between the screws and minimum preload required to withstand the thermal conditions are studied and discussed in this paper. The simulation results predict the gasket pressure due to compression, shape of gasket and compressive ratio. The gasket pressure measured from pressure sensitive film test results are well correlated with simulation gasket pressure results. Finally, this robust methodology supports us to virtually validate the gasket design by reducing the number of design iterations and quick evaluation of products.