JPH05211258A - Boiling/cooling device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a boiling/cooling device of small-size and light-weight by sharing the cooling devices of high-capacity main circuit semiconductor elements and auxiliary circuit semiconductor elements. CONSTITUTION:An evaporation pipeline constituted of an evaporation container 2A for main circuit semiconductor elements, an evaporation container 2B for auxiliary circuit semiconductor elements, insulating glasses 4A, 4B communicating with them, and bellows 5A, 5B is joined with a relay tank 6 to share an evaporation chamber 7, a liquid chamber 8, and a condenser.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a boiling cooling device for cooling semiconductor elements of an electric circuit for railway vehicles, and more particularly, to a compact and lightweight system in which an evaporation container containing a liquid refrigerant is brought into close contact with a heating element for cooling. The present invention relates to a boiling cooling device suitable for.

2. Description of the Related Art As a cooling device for a flat semiconductor device used in a railroad vehicle, a cooling device having a structure shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-37482, which allows easy replacement of the device, is adopted. In railway vehicles, an inverter system is used as a method of controlling the electric motor for driving the vehicle, in which a DC power source is converted to an AC power source to drive an AC motor, and the cooling device is a cooling mechanism for the semiconductor elements used in this inverter main circuit. In order to efficiently carry out the switching action of the main circuit semiconductor element, a bypass circuit is required in association with the main circuit. This circuit consists of diodes, capacitors, and resistors, and wiring and equipment layout that minimize the reactance of the circuit are required. If the control current has a large capacity, the capacity of the bypass circuit device will inevitably increase. Further, the semiconductor element used in the bypass circuit also needs to be cooled, and at the same time, the wiring length must be minimized in order to reduce the reactance, so that the devices are arranged close to each other. In the above-mentioned known example, since the control current is small in capacity, the device is small and compact arrangement is possible.

Semiconductor elements used in railway vehicles are used in the main circuit of a vehicle drive motor as an inverter that obtains AC power from DC by a switching action at high speed. In order to smoothly perform the switching operation of this semiconductor element, a snubber circuit composed of a diode, a capacitor and a resistor is required as a bypass circuit for the current when the main circuit is "OFF". In this snubber circuit, it is necessary to minimize the reactance of the electric circuit in order to effectively bring out the characteristics of the main circuit semiconductor element. Therefore, it is also required that the wiring length of the circuit is shortest. On the other hand, a semiconductor element such as a diode used in a snubber circuit needs to be cooled like a main circuit semiconductor element if its control current becomes large. For this reason, it is inevitable that the cooling device will be complex and large. It is an object of the present invention to provide a large-capacity boiling cooling device that is compact and lightweight by integrating multiple cooling devices.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is a steam pipe which divides a relay tank provided in a main circuit cooling device into a steam chamber and a liquid chamber and communicates with a main circuit evaporation container. A refrigerant circulation path is formed by connecting a vapor pipe line communicating with the passage and the snubber circuit evaporation container to the relay tank vapor chamber, and a liquid return pipe communicating with the lower portion of each evaporation container from the relay tank liquid chamber.

The refrigerant vapor boiling from the evaporation container for the main circuit semiconductor element and the refrigerant vapor boiling from the evaporation container for the snubber circuit semiconductor element gather in the vapor chamber of the common relay tank and go to the condenser. The cooling liquid liquefied in the condenser descends and collects in the liquid chamber of the relay tank. The liquid chamber of the relay tank is provided with a liquid return pipe that communicates with each evaporation container, and the liquid refrigerant is dispersed and flows down to the evaporation container. The refrigerant repeats such a heat cycle, and the relay tank and the condenser operate by being commonly used for cooling the semiconductor elements of the two circuits.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 is a front view of the boiling cooling device of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken along line I-I of FIG. 2. 3 shows a side view of FIG. 2, and FIG. 4 shows a view seen from IV of FIG. The semiconductor elements 1A and 1B of the main circuit are held by the evaporation container 2A and the stud bolt 3A that presses them in contact, and the heat generated in the semiconductor elements 1A and 1B is conducted to the evaporation container 2A. An insulating joint 4A and a bellows 5A are connected to the evaporation container 2A to form a steam pipe line, and the end portion is joined to the steam chamber 7 side of the relay tank 6. The relay tank 6 is divided into a vapor chamber 7 and a liquid chamber 8. From the liquid chamber 8, a liquid return pipe 9A penetrates through the vapor pipeline and hangs down to the bottom of the evaporation container 2A to evaporate the refrigerant liquid. It is designed to be supplied to a container. On the other hand, the semiconductor elements 10A, 10 on the snubber circuit side
B is held in pressure contact with the evaporation container 2B from left and right via stud bolts 3B. An insulator 4B and a bellows 5B are connected to the evaporation container 2B on the snubber circuit side to form a steam pipe line, and an end portion thereof is joined to the steam chamber 7 side of the relay tank 6. Further, a liquid return pipe 9B is formed from the liquid chamber 8 so as to penetrate through the vapor pipe line and hang down to the lower portion of the evaporation container 2B so as to supply the refrigerant liquid to the evaporation container 2B. The relay tank 6 is joined to the lower header 12 of the condenser 11, and the boiling steam flows from the steam chamber 7 into the condenser steam pipe 13 via the lower header steam chamber. The header chamber of the lower header 12 is partitioned by a partition plate 15 on the steam pipe 13 side and the condensing pipe 14 side. The boiling vapor flows into the condensing pipe 14 via the vapor pipe 13 and the upper header 16, where heat exchange is performed, and the refrigerant vapor is liquefied, and is accumulated in the liquid chamber of the relay tank 8 via the lower header 12. The refrigerant accumulated in the liquid chamber flows down into the evaporation containers 2A and 2B via the liquid return pipes 9A and 9B, respectively. In the present invention, the evaporation container is arranged in the lower part and the condenser is arranged in the upper part to facilitate blowing up of the vapor and flowing down of the refrigerant liquid, and by sharing the relay tank, the semiconductor element of the snubber circuit is used as the main circuit semiconductor element. Since it can be disposed in the vicinity of and the wiring length can be shortened, a compact and large-capacity boiling cooling device can be provided.

According to the present invention, a compact, compact and lightweight boiling cooling device is provided by combining a condenser and a relay tank of a cooling device for a main circuit semiconductor device with a cooling unit for a semiconductor device for an auxiliary circuit and sharing them. Can be provided.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a boiling cooling apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of a boiling cooling device showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a side view of a boiling cooling device showing an embodiment of the present invention.

4 is a view on arrow IV in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

2A, 2B ... Evaporation container, 4A, 4B ... Insulator, 5A,
5B ... Bellows, 6 ... Relay tank, 7 ... Steam chamber, 8 ... Liquid chamber, 9A, 9B ... Liquid return pipe, 10A, 10B ... Snubber circuit semiconductor element, 11 ... Condenser.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Hiroshi Itahana 2 832 Horiguchi, Katsuta City, Ibaraki Prefecture Hitachi System Plaza Katsuta Hitachi Mito Engineering Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A pipe constituted by an evaporation container for accommodating a liquid refrigerant for holding and cooling a first semiconductor element group constituting a main circuit of an electric circuit, an insulating joint connected to the evaporation container, a bellows and the like. Boil cooling, which is provided with a pipe, the pipe line, a relay tank that connects the condenser header and the evaporation container to each other, and a liquid return pipe that penetrates the pipe line to connect the condenser header and the evaporation container to each other. In the apparatus, the second semiconductor element group is arranged in parallel with the first semiconductor element group, sharing the relay tank of the boiling cooling apparatus.