Determination of relationship between rise in Temperature and Overall Efficiency in a 3-Phase Induction Motor and Thermal Analysis of a suitable Cooling Jacket

Abstract

The 3 phase induction motor used to power an electric vehicle (EV) tends to overheat on continuous usage, which in turn leads to higher thermal losses. In order to tackle this issue, a suitable cooling system has to be incorporated. This project focuses on obtaining boundary conditions through thermo-electrical conjugation of motor power losses, and subsequently performs design and analysis of a suitable cooling jacket which encloses the motor casing. Based on performance criteria, the best suited coolant fluid is chosen i.e. in this case plain water. After performing heat transfer and flow simulation on the cooling jacket, it was seen that the average bulk temperature of the motor was seen to limit within 60±5℃ (as per the optimal working temperature of the motor as provided by the manufacturer data sheet), when the flow rate of coolant was varied within 0.1-0.125 kg/s.