Optimization of Location of a Power Cell for Energy Efficient Operation of Air Cool Drives

In this paper, Siemen’s air cooled drive systems is analyzed for its energy efficient operation. It consists of various individual power cells, which further houses different electrical/electronic components of the system. The cells are stacked in an array of 3×3. An blower is used to pull the ambient air through the individual cells in order to operate them at low temperatures. However, distribution of air through all the cells may not be uniform. Thus, in order to operate electronics within permissible limits, sometimes it may be desirable to have flow rates higher than required. In this paper, first a simple representative cell (mimic cell) was fabricated whose system resistance was similar to that of original power cell. The simpler mimic cell was further used to perform numerical optimization wherein location of all the mimic cell is varied in order to reduce the mal distribution. The analysis showed that location of all the power cells is extremely critical. Also, the location of fan had a noticeable effect on the flow distribution. The optimized case resulted in mal-distribution of 16 cfm compared to 29.5 cfm for the baseline scenario.