Online failure prediction of the electrolytic capacitor for LC filter of switching-mode power converters

The objective of this paper is to propose a new method to detect the rise of equivalent series resistor in order to realize the online failure prediction of the electrolytic capacitor for LC filter of switching-mode power converter. Characteristics of electrolytic capacitors are introduced in this paper. Different experimental measurements are conducted and shown to illustrate the properties of electrolytic capacitors. The proposed online failure prediction method has the merits of low cost and circuit simplicity. It can be integrated within the package of the electrolytic capacitor to improve its reliability. Hardware experimental results are shown to verify the performance of the proposed method. Index Terms--Electrolytic capacitor, equivalent series resistor, failure prediction, switching-mode power converter.