Cooling of Windings in Electric Machines via 3D Printed Heat Exchanger

This paper presents a novel use of 3D printed heat exchangers for advanced thermal management of electric machines. Thermal and computational fluid dynamics models are used to quantify the effectiveness of the 3D printed, Direct Winding Heat eXchangers (3D-DWHX). 3D printing enables complex flow geometries to be produced which facilitates the integration of the heat exchanger and reduces component count. The use of dielectric polymer for the heat exchanger allows direct contact with high voltage components to minimize the thermal resistance between windings and coolant. By occupying the otherwise unused space between double layer concentrated windings, there is no significant impact on the electromagnetic design. The result is an increased continuous power rating and power density of electric machines.