CFD Study of Forced Air Cooling and Windage Losses in a High Speed Electric Motor

High speed and high efficiency synchronized electric motors are favored in the automotive industry and turbo machinery industry worldwide because of the demands placed on efficiency. Herein an electric motor thermal control system using cooling air which enters from the drive end of the motor and exits from the non-drive end of the motor as the rotor experiences dissipates heat is addressed using CFD. Analyses using CFD can help to find the appropriate mass flow rate and windage losses while satisfying temperature requirements on the motor. Here, the air flow through a small annular gap is fed at 620 L/min (0.011 kg/sec) as the rotor spins at 100,000 rpm (10,472 rad/sec) and the rotor dissipates 200 W. The CFD results are compared with experimental results. Based upon the CFD findings, a novel heat transfer correlation suitable for large axial Reynolds number, large Taylor number, small annular gap Taylor-Couette flows subject to axial cross-flow is proposed herein.

Numerical investigation of windage heating within shrouded rotor-stator cavity system with central inflow

The rotating disk surface temperature rise due to windage heating effect by numerically modeling the turbulent flow within a rotor-stator cavity which is available with a peripheral shroud and imposed through airflow was dealt with.The windage heating may be defined as viscous friction heating caused by relative velocity differences across the boundary layers between the fluid and the rotating disk surface.The kinetic energy dissipation process could transform the rotating shaft power into thermal heating.Commercial finite volume based solver,ANSYS/CFX was employed to numerically simulate this physical process by using the shear stress transport(SST)turbulence model.CFD results include the rotating disk surface temperature axial distribution and tangential velocity distribution of the fluid domain.The velocity difference between the result obtained by particle image velocimetry(PIV)experiments and CFD simulation are within 5%.The adiabatic disk temperature rise can be calculated by the tangential velocity of disk and fluid in large gap ratio and turbulent parameter.CFD temperature distribution results and those estimated via velocity differences are within 10%.

Effect of windage heating on a micro high-speed rotor-stator cavity

The main objective of this work is to investigate the effect of windage heating on the micro high-speed rotor-stator cavity.The influences of centrifugal force and spacing on the windage heating are analyzed with and without the change of gap ratio respectively.The results demonstrate that there is no difference in the flow structure between micro and large-scale rotorstator cavities at the same rotational Reynolds number and gap ratio.However,the windage heating induced by the larger centrifugal force and smaller spacing brings the different heat transfer laws for the micro rotor-stator cavity.The larger centrifugal force weakens the local heat transfer near the rotor periphery.Such influence can be strengthened at higher rotational Reynolds numbers and lower rotor excess temperatures.Besides,the smaller spacing further enhances the windage heating and reduces the average heat transfer especially under the condition of lower gap ratio.The findings of this work contribute to the design of rotor-stator cavity utilized in the micro rotating machinery.

Mechanics Analysis of Overhead Transmission Lines Based On-line Monitoring

At present, the on-line monitoring is widely applied to the power line monitoring. In this paper, a new mechanical calculation model is established according to the on-line monitoring. And this model is based on the parameters that tension sensors and angle sensors on suspended points detect, and combines with the parameters of the wire itself, and also considers the deflection angel of wires due to wind. In this model, mechanics parameters of wires are turned into the new coordinate plane after deflection angel of wires due to wind, or windage yaw plane. A statics tension balance equation is built in the vertical direction of the new windage yaw plane. According to the theoretical analysis and algorithm, we verify the accuracy of this newly developed mechanical calculation model.

Flow characteristics of radial inflow in impeller rear cavity with baffle plate

The research purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of the baffle plate on the airflow in the rear cavity of the centrifugal impeller and optimize the performance of the secondary air system’s air bleed section.In this paper,a comprehensive experimental study was carried out on the flow characteristics in the impeller rear cavity with baffle plate.The windage torque,flow structure and pressure drop between inlet and outlet were measured respectively.The experiment was carried out with the condition that the range of rotational Reynolds number was from 8.33×10^(5)to 22.2×10^(5)and the range of mass flow rate coefficient was from 0.92×10^(4)to 2.92×10^(4).The results show that the static cavity and the narrow stator-rotor cavity formed by the baffle plate effectively suppress the overall swirl coefficient in the cavity.Thus,the static pressure and total pressure drop in the rotor-stator cavity were reduced.The influence of the baffle plate on the windage torque of the rotary disk is related to the turbulence parameters.Under large turbulence parameters,the windage torque would be reduced with baffle plate,while under small turbulence parameters,the baffle plate would increase with baffle plate.In general,the baffle plate can improve the flow capacity and optimize the bleed air performance with proper structure and operation conditions.

Performance Analysis of Inter-Stage Leakage Flows at Rotating Conditions in an Axial Compressor

For the compressor with shrouded stator blades,the stator well is a rotor-stator space between the rotating drum and the stationary shroud.Due to the pressure difference,a reverse leakage flow would travel through the stator well and inject into the main flow path.Although,the labyrinth seal is commonly placed under the shroud,the rotation effect and seal clearance variation in actual operation process have great impact on the characteristics of this inter-stage leakage,as well as the compressor performance.In this paper,experiments were conducted at a compressor inter-stage seal test rig.The leakage flow rates,total temperatures and swirl ratios were obtained at different speeds and working clearances.The proportions of rotation effect and the clearance reduction effect were analyzed by data processing.Comparisons indicate that the working clearance and leakage flow reduce about 43%and 50%respectively,when the rotational speedω=8100 r/min.The proportion of reduction caused by the rotation effect is around 15%,while the influence of working clearance variation is much greater,accounting for about 35%.The windage heating coefficient and swirl ratio in the outlet cavity are almost in exponential relationship with the rotor speed.The increases in total temperature and swirl ratio generated by the rotation effect are found to be about 80%.In addition,the swirl and radial velocity profiles in the cavities were discussed by validated numerical simulations to reveal the typical flow characteristics.The data presented can provide guidance for better leakage conditions prediction as well as the inter-stage seal design enhancement.

Thermal Performance Prediction in the Air Gap of a Rotor-Stator Configuration: Effects of Numerical Models

This study is dedicated to a numerical investigation of convective heat transfer on the rotor surfaces of a rotor-stator configuration that is typically found in large hydro-generators.The computational fluid dynamics calculations with two turbulence modelling approaches are used to predict the flow structure and heat transfer in the air gap of the rotor-stator configuration.The steady state mixing plane approach is employed at the interface to couple the rotor and stator components.Results show that the location of mixing plane interface in the air gap plays an important role in the prediction of heat transfer on the pole face.Also,it is indicated that the prediction of temperature distribution on the pole face is greatly affected by the turbulence models used.Furthermore,through a comparison between the pure convective and conjugate heat transfer methodologies,it is shown that the inclusion of solid domain into the numerical model significantly improves the thermal prediction of the solid components of the machine.