Thermal Analysis of Water Cooled IPMSM Using Thermal Equivalent Circuit Network

Abstract

Recently, the interior permanent synchronous motor (IPMSM) has been applied to an integrated starter and generator (ISG) for hybrid electric vehicles. In the design of such a motor, thermal analysis is necessary to maximize the power density because the loss is proportional to the power of a motor. Therefore, a cooling device as a heat sink is required internally. Generally, a cooling system designed with a water jacket structure is widely used for electric motors because it has advantages of simple structure and cooling effectiveness. An effective approach to analyze an electric machine with a water jacket is a thermal equivalent network. This network is composed of thermal resistance, a heat source, and thermal capacitance that consider the conduction, convection, and radiation. In particular, modeling of the cooling channel in a network is challenging owing to the flow of the coolant. In this paper, temperature prediction using a thermal equivalent network is performed in an ISG that has a water cooled system. Then, an experiment is conducted to verify the thermal equivalent network.