Preliminary Study on the Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in Formed, Lap-Wound End Windings of Electric Machinery

Thermal analysis is a critical function in the design of electric machinery. While the core design discipline is electro-magnetics, other classic mechanical engineering expertise is required to create state of the art electric machines. Various components of electric machines present the thermal design engineer with obvious applications of classic, well-known solutions. These would include simultaneous thermal and hydro-dynamically developing flow when considering the long, narrow cooling ducts placed between stator laminations. However, the cooling of end windings of a formed, lap-wound electric machine is more challenging. This area features insulated copper coils that extend out of the stator or rotor and return to another section of the machine to complete the loop of a single coil. Effective thermal and flow analysis of this basket-like shape does not easily lend itself to well-known solutions. The present study explores the current literature of this type of machine end-windings as related to thermal and flow solutions. Simple correlations are proposed to aid machine designers that would accelerate the design process. These correlations can be used in thermal and fluid network programs to quickly predict flows and temperatures in a machine. Recent work to characterize heat transfer performance from the pressure drop in heat exchangers using the Generalized Leveque Equation can be of particular value for this effort. Finally, simple Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis is presented for a simple geometry similar to a single, isolated stator bar.