• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
• /
• v.32 no.1
• /
• pp.24-31
• /
• 2012

In this study, semi-solid thin plate of A 356 aluminum alloy was fabricated by using slope plate apparatus and vacuum pressurization. Slope plate was used to produce semi-solid material with spheroidal microstructures. After molten metal was poured into the slope plate connected to the pouring hole of die, semi-solid material flowed into the die cavity by vacuum degree. The primary crystals of the cast metal became spheroidal. In order to increase the working pressure, gas pressurization of U shape was designed for fabrication of thin plate. For 3 bar of gas pressure and 60 mmHg of vacuum degree, thin plate was fabricated without defects on surface.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.103-111
• /
• 2017

In this study, the thermomechanical stress and fatigue analysis of a high voltage and high current (3,300 V/1200 A) insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) module used for electric locomotive applications were performed under thermal cycling condition. Especially, the reliability of the copper wire and the ribbon wire were compared with that of the conventional aluminum wire. The copper wire showed three times higher stress than the aluminum wire. The ribbon type wire showed a higher stress than the circular type wire, and the copper ribbon wire showed the highest stress. The fatigue analysis results of the chip solder connecting the chip and the direct bond copper (DBC) indicated that the crack of the solder mainly occurred at the outer edge of the solder. In case of the circular wire, cracking of the solder occurred at 35,000 thermal cycles, and the crack area in the copper wire was larger than that of the aluminum wire. On the other hand, when the ribbon wire was used, the crack area was smaller than that of the circular wire. In case of the solder existing between DBC and base plate, the crack growth rate was similar regardless of the material and shape of the wire. However, cracking occurred earlier than chip solder, and more than half of the solder was failed at 40,000 cycles. Therefore, it is expected that the reliability of the solder between DBC and base plate would be worse than the chip solder.