Abstract:

E-mobility, aerospace, railway and marine applications increasingly require high power and torque density motors. The aim of this paper is to present a practical method of thermal modeling for railway motors and e-mobility traction. This paper presents a modeling approach based on numerical reduced-order modeling (ROM) to analyze the thermal behavior of electric traction motors. In this study, a single conjugate heat transfer (CHT) analysis provides the possibility to accurately predict thermal performances by incorporating both computational fluid dynamic (CFD) and heat transfer modules. In this method, first the CHT model of the motor is developed, then the developed model is used as the basis for deriving a fast reduced-order model of the traction motor thermal behaviour in duty cycles with a high number of operating points. All the results achieved are verified using flow and temperature measurements carried out on a traction motor designed and built for metro applications. The results show a good agreement between the models and measurement values of flows and temperatures while keeping the computational time within a reasonable range.