Air-gap convection in rotating electrical machines

Abstract

This paper reviews convective heat transfer within the air-gap of both cylindrical and disc geometry rotating electrical machines, including worked examples relevant to fractional horsepower electrical machines. Thermal analysis of electrical machines is important because torque density is limited by maximum temperature. Knowledge of surface convective heat transfer coefficients is necessary for accurate thermal modelling for example using lumped parameter models. There exists a wide body of relevant literature, but much of it has traditionally been in other application areas, dominated by mechanical engineers, such as gas turbine design. Particular attention is therefore given to the explanation of the relevant non-dimensional parameters, and to the presentation of measured convective heat transfer correlations for a wide variety of situations from laminar to turbulent flow at small and large gap sizes for both radial flux and axial flux electrical machines.