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Abstract

The disclosure relates to a method for operating a switching element of an electrical component, which includes: providing a time series of current strength values of an electrical current flowing in the electrical component registered in time steps that are consecutive, the electrical current being led through the switching element, operating a thermal model of the electrical component, determining a temperature of the electrical component from the current strength values using the thermal model and, in response to determining that the temperature is greater than a limit value, switching the switching element to an electrically blocking state in which the current is interrupted. The disclosure thermal model is a first order recursive filter that filters squared current strength values of the time series and generates, as a respective output value in each of the time steps, a presently estimated temperature value T_n that is compared to the limit value.

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First Claim