Thermal Simulation of an Oil-Cooled E-Motor

Abstract

Temperature prediction of windings is of importance during development of an oil-cooled electric motor. A new method using a particle-based CFD software solution has been tested and validated against experimental data with the aim to simulate violent multi-phase flow more efficiently than with traditional CFD codes based on finite volume method. The fluid simulation was used to acquire a heat transfer coefficient (HTC) map whereas an advanced technique of simulating air and oil flow field separately with different particle sizes was utilized at this stage. The HTC map was subsequently applied to a steady state finite element thermal model in order to solve for temperature field. The correlation with the experimental data was deemed satisfactory within the targeted tolerance.

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