Numerical study of the impact of different cooling arrangements on a high length/diameter ratio motor for electric commercial vehicle

La Rocca, Salvatore; La Rocca, Antonino; Walker, Adam; Vakil, Gaurang; Gerada, David; Al-Ani, Mahir; Zou, Tianjie; Ramanathan, Ramkumar; Gerada, Chris; McQueen, Alastair; Paciura, Krzysztof

Abstract

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used to carry out a fluid flow and thermal investigation of a high power dense traction machine for electric commercial vehicle. One of the features of the machine design considered is the high Length/Diameter (L/D) ratio; this can represent a further challenge when performing the thermal design; indeed the heat dissipation from the stator core can represent an issue. The aim of this work is to identify an effective cooling configuration capable of enhancing the cooling of the stator and maintaining the operating temperature of the whole machine within the allowable limits. In this paper CFD analyses were therefore used to assess the thermal capability of several cooling arrangements; numerical results of each case are presented and compared. In particular an alternative cooling option, consisting in the implementation of heat pipes between the machine's stator teeth, was considered. Due to their simple structure and high heat transfer coefficients, heat pipes are not invasive but at the same time can dissipate large amount of heat. CFD results show how a significant temperature drop of the machine's core can be achieved.

Citation

La Rocca, S., La Rocca, A., Walker, A., Vakil, G., Gerada, D., Al-Ani, M., Zou, T., Ramanathan, R., Gerada, C., McQueen, A., & Paciura, K. (2019, October). Numerical study of the impact of different cooling arrangements on a high length/diameter ratio motor for electric commercial vehicle. Presented at International Conference on Electrotechnical Complexes and Systems (ICOECS 2019), Ufa, Russia

• Presentation Conference Type: Edited Proceedings
• Conference Name: International Conference on Electrotechnical Complexes and Systems (ICOECS 2019)
• Start Date: Oct 21, 2019
• End Date: Oct 25, 2019
• Acceptance Date: Jul 22, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jan 6, 2020
• Publication Date: 2019-10
• Deposit Date: Mar 26, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 30, 2020
• Pages: 1-5
• Book Title: Proceedings: 2019 International Conference on Electrotechnical Complexes and Systems (ICOECS)
• ISBN: 978-1-7281-1729-4
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICOECS46375.2019.8949929
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4205925
• Publisher URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8949929
• Additional Information: © 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.