Water-cooled Motors Freeze Out Heat Page 3

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Today, software handles the thermal calculations for these paths as well as the whole design of the motor. It tells the user whether cooling measures and design parameters are adequate for the planned application. Overheating will show up in these calculations as overtemperatures of the stator winding, rotor copper, and bearings.

There are several remedies available in the case where thermal modeling reveals problems with overheating. The most obvious is to increase the flow of cooling water. Other strategies aim to reduce motor losses (and therefore minimize heating) through various means.

For example, the motor designer might change the thickness of the lamination material or change the length and width of the teeth in the stator to make room for additional copper windings. This would lower the stator copper losses.

 Additionally, the designer might reduce losses by changing the number of stator slots, reducing the air gap between the rotor and stator, or just increasing the motor length or diameter. Use of different materials that have less thermal resistivity would be fair game as well.

  

Among the functions of modern-day motor design software is the calculation of thermal-transfer parameters to verify cooling capacity. One such analysis took place for a a120-hp water-cooled motor with the resulting component temperatures and temperature rises (TR) as depicted. Designers enter as inputs factors such as air-gap distance ad thermal conductivity of slot insulators, of the housing, the slot iron, the lamination, varnish, and of other components. Other inputs include amount of water flow, dimensions of the bearing shields, thickness of the slot insulators, and so forth. The software then calculates outputs that include rotor copper and stator-winding temperatures, as well as the temperature rise in the bearings.

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