Thermo-Mechanical Fatigue Life Assessment of IGBT Power Modules Using a Unified Creep Plasticity Damage Approach
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This study presents a numerical framework for predicting the thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF) life of solder joints in insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) power modules based on an existing unified creep plasticity damage (UCPD) model. The constitutive formulation captures the interaction between time-dependent creep and cyclic plastic deformation, enabling a physically consistent description of solder degradation under thermal cycling. The model is implemented within a finite-element framework using a user-defined CREEP subroutine in ABAQUS and validated against available experimental data for solder materials. Subsequently, the approach is applied to simulate damage accumulation in solder joints of an IGBT power module subjected to cyclic thermal loading representative of power-cycling conditions. The predicted damage evolution and fatigue lifetime show good agreement with reported power-cycling trends, demonstrating the capability of the unified formulation to reproduce key failure mechanisms in solder interconnects. The results confirm that the proposed modeling approach is well suited for TMF life prediction of power electronic assemblies and can support reliability assessment and design optimization of IGBT modules. Owing to its general formulation, the approach is also applicable to other electronic packaging systems where solder fatigue driven by coupled creep–plasticity effects is critical.
