Metallized polymer film capacitors ageing law based on capacitance degradation

• Published in: Microelectronics and reliability 2014-09, Vol.54 (9-10), p.1823-1827
• Main Authors: Makdessi, M., Sari, A., Venet, P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accelerated ageing; Ageing law; Aging; Applied sciences; Capacitance; Capacitors; Degradation; Dielectric, amorphous and glass solid devices; Electric potential; Electric power; Electrical engineering. Electrical power engineering; Electronic equipment and fabrication. Passive components, printed wiring boards, connectics; Electronics; Engineering Sciences; Exact sciences and technology; Failure mechanism; Film capacitors; Law; Metallizing; Power electronics, power supplies; Predictive maintenance; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Voltage
• ISSN: 0026-2714; 1872-941X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.microrel.2014.07.103

•We study the temperature and voltage effects on the degradation kinetics of MPF.•Accelerated ageing tests are used to study the failure mechanisms of MPF.•We model the degradation of the capacitance as function of temperature and voltage.•The proposed ageing law is used as a diagnostic tool. Passive components, particularly capacitors, are very used devices in power electronics applications providing key function on board. Nevertheless, capacitors breakdowns can have catastrophic consequences on the financial and human scale; a good acquaintance of their deterioration over time would contribute in the improvement of the availability of the whole system by performing a predictive maintenance on the component. This operation requires the knowledge of the capacitor ageing law and their failure mechanisms associated to the application. Capacitance loss can be mainly attributed to the self-healing process occurring in metallized film capacitors when used under high steady electrical and thermal stresses. In this paper, a capacitance ageing law is proposed based on the identification of voltage and temperature degradation kinetics from three experimental floating ageing tests performed at different voltage and temperature constraints. A total of 34 capacitors provided from different manufacturers using polyester film as dielectric have been studied and compared to validate the proposed law.