Novel Methods of Thermal Management in High‐Performance Induction Motors Using Direct Stator Winding Cooling

Canada is the 10th largest contributor to the production of greenhouse gas emissions with 22% coming from the transportation sector. Consumers are encouraged to transition into electric vehicles as a clean alternative to fossil fuel consumption. However, the initial cost and reliability of current electric drives has negatively affected the market sales prompting the need for innovation. Therefore, this thesis investigates the thermal performance of an induction motor as a cost-effective alternative to current electric drives retrofit with a novel heat removal system to enhance the reliability. The heat removal system is comprised of a collection of channels strategically placed within the stator slots, where liquid coolant can be forced through to extract unwanted heat that imposes thermal stress on internal components. The winding insulation has the largest thermal limit of 125℃, such that the objective of this thesis is to ensure this temperature is not exceeded over four operating conditions: two rotor speeds (rated and maximum) at two power ratings (continuous and peak). A total of five configurations are evaluated based on the second law of thermodynamics to determine the amount of energy lost to the surrounding environment when heat is removed by the system. It was determined that all five configurations meet the objectives for this thesis, however, when the number of channels decrease within the slot, the amount of energy lost to the surroundings increase. Therefore, the second case evaluated was able to achieve the lowest temperature of 73.15℃ with a total of 39.82W of energy lost to the surroundings which was considered to be the best of the five cases based on the constraints defined throughout the thesis.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.Sc.

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical, Automotive, and Materials Engineering

Grantor

University of Windsor

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Arangio, Alex

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ofelia Jianu

Contributors dc:contributor

• scholarship@uwindsor.ca

Licence

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_CA

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14776/8726

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwindsor.scholaris.ca:20.500.14776/8726