An intelligent technique for condition based self-maintenance of aluminum electrolytic capacitors

摘要

This paper presents an intelligent technique for condition based self-maintenance of aluminum electrolytic capacitors. In-circuit condition of capacitors is monitored by calculating its remaining useful life in real time. On the basis of capacitor condition, self-maintained operation is performed by controlling the case temperature using thermo-electric cooling (TEC) module. Temperature difference between two plates of TEC module is obtained by varying duty ratio of its input voltage waveform that is capacitor case temperature dependent. Temperature of capacitor is controlled by maintaining cold side temperature of TEC as function of change in case to ambient temperature. The proposed scheme is implemented in National Instruments Lab VIEW software and a low cost microcontroller board is used for data acquisition and control. To make the developed system more flexible in use, it has two different modes of operation: monitoring mode and self-maintenance mode. There are provisions for auto shut down of test circuit at critical condition of capacitor and also manual shut down for maintenance or other purposes. The scheme is equipped with web based remote monitoring and maintenance feature. The proposed technique can be customized for condition monitoring and maintenance of critical components in any power electronic system.