Thermal Models for TENV Inductio

Thermal Models for TENV Induction Motors - Comparative Study

Dave Staton, Mircea Popescu

Motor Design Ltd., Ellesmere, U.K.,

Thermal analysis is an important design aspect and becoming a more important component of the electric motor design process due to the push for reduced weights and costs and increased efficiency. The accuracy of analytical thermal models depends on the accuracy of the thermal resistance computation and on the number of nodes in the equivalent thermal circuit. In this paper several thermal analytical models with different numbers of nodes are compared against with each other and with experimental data. Simplified and/or detailed analytical thermal models can be successfully used in predicting the temperature rise in small induction motors. The level of detail and accuracy of these models strongly depends on the number of nodes and how the thermal resistances are set up. The calibration process for various reduced nodal model will be successfully described. Once calibrated the reduced node thermal models give both satisfactory accuracy and allow very fast and robust thermal calculations. A comparison with 2D finite-element results and experimental data is provided. The models are all for the same range of TENV induction motors.