Thermal Analysis and Cooling Strategies of High-Efficiency Three-Phase Squirrel-Cage Induction Motors—A Review

Research output: Journal contributionsScientific review articlesResearch

Authors

  • Yashwanth Reddy Konda
  • Vamsi Krishna Ponnaganti
  • Peram Venkata Sivarami Reddy
  • R. Raja Singh
  • Paolo Mercorelli
  • Edison Gundabattini
  • Darius Gnanaraj Solomon

In recent times, there has been an increased demand for electric vehicles. In this context, the energy management of the electric motor, which are an important constituent of electric vehicles, plays a pivotal role. A lot of research has been conducted on the optimization of heat flow through electric motors, thus reducing the wastage of energy via heat. Futuristic power sources may increasingly rely on cutting-edge innovations like energy harvesting and self-powered induction motors. In this context, effective thermal management techniques are discussed in this paper. Importance was given to the potential energy losses, hotspots, the influence of overheating on the motor efficiency, different cooling strategies, certain experimental approaches, and power control techniques. Two types of thermal analysis computation methods, namely the lumped-parameter circuit method (LPCM) and the finite element method (FEM), are discussed. Also, this paper reviews different cooling strategies. The experimental research showed that the efficiency was greater by 11% with the copper rotor compared to the aluminum rotor. Each rotor type was reviewed based on the temperature rise and efficiency at higher temperatures. The water-cooling method reduced the working temperatures by 39.49% at the end windings, 41.67% at the side windings, and by a huge margin of 56.95% at the yoke of the induction motor compared to the air-cooling method; hence, the water-cooling method is better. Lastly, modern cooling strategies are proposed to provide an effective thermal management solution for squirrel-cage induction motors.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6
JournalComputation
Volume12
Issue number1
Number of pages21
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 04.01.2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 by the authors.

    Research areas

  • cooling strategy, heat transfer coefficient, hotspots, induction motor, power control, thermal analysis, thermal management
  • Engineering