Steady State and 2D Thermal Equivalence Circuit for Winding Heads—A New Modelling Approach

Abstract

The study concerns the winding head thermal design of electrical machines in difficult thermal environments. The new approach is adapted for all basic shapes and solves the thermal behaviour of a random wire layout. The model uses the nodal method but does not use the common homogenization method for the winding slot. The layout impact can be precisely studied to find different hotspots. To achieve this a Delaunay triangulation provides the thermal links between adjoining wires in the slot. Voronoï tessellation gives a cutting to estimate thermal conductance between adjoining wires. This thermal behaviour is simulated in cell cutting and it is simplified with the thermal bridge notion to obtain a simple solving of these thermal conductances. The boundaries are imposed on the slot borders with Dirichlet condition. Then solving with many Dirichlet conditions is described. Some results show different possible applications with rectangular and round shapes, one ore many boundaries, different limit condition values and different layouts. The model can be integrated into a larger model that represents the stator to have best results.

Mathematical Models for the Design of Electrical Machines

“…The 3-D nonlinear MEC exhibited fairly accurate results when compared to the 3-D FEA, with a significant gain in computation time (viz, 4.7 s and 1560 s for one position, respectively). Petitgirard et al [8]. This original study concerned the winding head thermal design of electrical machines in difficult thermal environments.…”