Concepts for energy self-sufficient cooling of direct linear drives

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The growing awareness for sustainable production as well as increasing energy prices lead to a rising demand for energy efficient solutions for production facilities. In addition, there is an increasing need for productivity and accuracy of machine tools. A possibility to increase productivity with high accuracy is the use of linear direct drives. To avoid thermally induced geometric errors, the ohmic losses in the primary part of the linear direct drive must be effectively removed by the installed cooling system. The recovery of thermal losses by using thermoelectric generators to increase the energy efficiency of linear directors is an innovative approach.The research project’s objective is the design and analysis of a self-sufficient cooling systems with adaptive characteristics for linear direct drives. The approach is to integrate thermoelectric generators in the heat flow between the primary part and the motor cooling system of the linear direct drive. Based on the thermoelectric Seebeck-effect and in dependency of the adjacent temperature difference an electrical voltage is generated. The extracted power of the electrical consumers corresponds to the difference between the absorbed and emitted heat flow of the thermoelectric generators. Thus, the heat flow to be removed is reduced by the generated power, which is directly fed to the electrical consumers of the motor cooling system. This thermoelectric system has adaptive characteristics, since the cooling power is provided as a function of the induced heat flow - i.e. load-dependent - and thus self-regulated. The present research project is intended to provide the proof of applicability of a self-sufficient cooling system to increase the energy efficiency of linear direct drives in machine tools.