Air cooling for a large-scale motor

This article experimentally and numerically investigates the thermal performance of a large-scale motor with a capacity of 2350 kW. The large-scale motor consists of a centrifugal fan, two axial fans, a shaft, a stator, a rotor and a heat exchanger with 637 cooling tubes. The test rigs are set up to measure the performance of the fans and the temperature distributions of the motor. The models of the fan and motor have been implemented in a Fluent software package to predict the flow and temperature fields inside the motor. The calculated results show good agreement with the measured data. In order to improve the motor thermal performance, several methods have been adopted, which are aiming to enhance the fan performance by changing the geometry, to redesign a new heat exchanger with guide vanes, and to optimize the distance between the axial fans. The modified design can decrease the temperature rise by 6 °C in both the stator and rotor.