Full-Scale Testing of an E-Motor Cooling System

汽车制造商正在通过转向电动汽车来应对环境问题，以减少温室气体排放。为了支持这一过程，我们需要优化电动汽车组件，如电池、逆变器和电动机（e -马达）。随着功率密度的增大，元件趋向于变小，从而产生更大的热通量。电机和逆变器的高温会降低效率、寿命和可靠性。行业需要全面的热电结构建模和协同设计技术，以支持开发具有成本效益和可制造的热管理解决方案。在拟开展的研究项目中，我们将主要关注电机冷却优化。用于汽车应用的常见电机配置多种多样，其中最常见的类型是永磁电机。然而，永磁电机似乎已经达到了其潜在的极限，并施加了重大的成本和效率障碍。另一种选择，但较少利用，电子电机类型是绕线场同步电机（WFSM）。WFSM运行时不使用稀土磁铁，而是用围绕转子极的铜绕组代替。然而，铜绕组在冷却方面具有挑战性，目前的冷却技术在去除高热负荷方面只取得了部分成功。我们团队的目标是与麦格纳国际公司合作，设计、优化和测试WFSM电机热管理系统。热管理系统的目标是降低转子和定子绕组的温度，并将其保持在安全的温度范围内，同时最大限度地减少功率输入。虽然热管理系统正在开发用于冷却wfsm，但它可以用于其他类型的电机。预期的结果将是一种更高效、更可靠、更经济的冷却解决方案，从而消除目前对稀土磁铁的依赖。此外，将开发新的建模方法，用于电机冷却的鲁棒模拟，这将有助于流体力学和传热的基础研究。

Automakers are responding to environmental issues by shifting towards electrified vehicles in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To support this process, we need to optimize electric vehicle components such as batteries, inverters and electric motors (E-motors). The components are tending to be smaller with larger power densities resulting in larger heat fluxes. High temperatures in E-motors and inverters decrease efficiency, longevity, and reliability. Industry needs holistic thermal-electrical-structural modelling and co-design techniques to support development of cost-effective and manufacturable thermal management solutions. In the proposed research project, we will focus primarily on E-motor cooling optimization. Common E-motor configurations for automotive applications are varied, the most common type of which are the permanent magnet machines. However, permanent magnet machines appear to have reached their potential limits and impose a significant cost and efficiency barrier. An alternative, but less utilized, E-motor type is a wound-field synchronous motor (WFSM). A WFSM operates without using rare-earth magnets which are replaced by copper windings around the rotor poles. However, the copper windings prove challenging to cool and current cooling technologies are only partially successful in removing high heat loads. Our team's goal, in partnership with Magna International Inc., is to design, optimize and test a WFSM motor thermal management system. The objective of the thermal management system is to reduce rotor and stator winding temperatures and retain them in safe temperature ranges, while simultaneously minimizing the power input. Although the thermal management system is being developed to cool WFSMs, it can be implemented for use in other types of motors. The expected outcome will be a more efficient, reliable, and affordable cooling solution that will eliminate the current dependency on rare-earth magnets. Moreover, new modelling approaches for the robust simulation of e-motor cooling will be developed which will contribute to fundamental research in fluid mechanics and heat transfer.