Numerical simulations of direct liquid cooling of the end-windings of an electric machine
Résumé
The laminar two-phase flow associated with the liquid cooling of the end-windings of an electric machine by oil jets is investigated by means of 3D simulations using the Volume of Fluid (VoF) approach. The study focuses on the analysis and validation of flow hydrodynamics and heat transfer, which have rarely been studied in such depth to date for this type of configuration. Surface corrugations and rotor movements are neglected to reduce the physical complexity of the flow and limit computational time, thus making it possible to carry out a grid sensitivity analysis and a variation of oil properties. Using Adaptative Mesh Refinement (AMR) and a boundary-layer grid along the end-windings surface yields limited alteration of the steady film coverage and film Reynolds numbers when coarsening the grid. Regarding heat transfer, however, the large Prandtl numbers of the liquid () require fine cells at the wall ( high for the conditions tested here) to achieve grid convergence, particularly in the jet impingement areas. Variations of liquid flow rate and oil properties are then carried out to identify key parameters in cooling, providing useful information for future simulations as well as optimization of such a system. The results show trends in film coverage that are consistent with previous studies in the literature: a wider film is obtained by increasing liquid flow rate or viscosity, or by decreasing surface tension or static contact angle. However, only an increase in flow rate or a decrease in static contact angle effectively enhance heat transfer (+78% in overall heat transfer with four times the oil flow rate and +100% for a decrease in contact angle from 120 to 10). For the other cases, the loss in film cooling efficiency (due to a lower film Reynolds number), counterbalances the higher wet surface. An increase of 30% in heat transfer is found for a decrease in kinematic viscosity from 32 to 8.5 , while the variation of surface tension (from 0.02 to 0.04 ) has a negligible effect. Over all parametric variations tested, the average film Reynolds does not exceed 30 (with a standard deviation of similar magnitude), with local values which do not exceed 100. Film height remains on average between 1.2 and 1.6 mm.
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