Heat Transfer Modeling of MHPA-Cooled Electrical Machines Using Modular 3D LPTN with Parameter Calibration

The application of advanced cooling technologies has promoted the development of high-performance motors, but also imposes challenges on thermal analysis. In response to this demand, this paper proposes a method aimed at improving the accuracy and efficiency of motor thermal analysis. The research focuses on a micro heat pipe array (MHPA)-integrated efficient cooling motor with an asymmetric structure. First, a three-dimensional lumped parameter thermal network (3D LPTN) is established based on the modular cell segmentation method, and the key thermal parameters in the model have been derived. After evaluating the correlation between different parameters and motor thermal performance, a calibration approach is employed to adjust the parameters’ initial values by using the optimization algorithm. Finally, the prototype is fabricated and tested, both numerical simulations and experiments validate the method’s accuracy for temperature prediction under different working conditions, which comprehensive confirms the effectiveness of this method.