AC losses reduction in Hairpin Windings produced via Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

One of the key challenges of hairpin windings is the reduction of their high losses at high-frequency operations. Hairpin layouts comprising conductors with variable cross sections have proven good loss performance in previous studies. However, they come at the cost of significant manufacturing complications.The aim of this work is to design hairpin layouts featuring reduced losses compared to classical configurations, exploiting the flexibility enabled by additive manufacturing. In this context, the choice of a proper material with relatively high conductivity and low ecological impact plays an important role. Hence, this article first presents an overview of materials that can be used for the winding additive manufacturing, aiming to select the most suitable one for the application at hand. Then, the loss performance is evaluated and compared against classical copper hairpins. The results demonstrate that opportunely selected alloys featuring asymmetric configurations can compete against classical hairpin windings.

Multiphysics topology optimization of aluminium and copper conductors for automotive electrical machines

“…A geometry that follows the magnetic vector potential lines is presented in [14]. Another example of a shape to reduce AC losses can be found in [15]. The models presented in these 3 cases are hardly manufacturable using traditional production methods, but are easily fabricated using additive manufacturing (AM) approaches [16]- [19].…”