Design and Analysis of a Permanent Magnet Brushless DC Motor in an Automotive Cooling System

Abstract

Conducting excellent thermal management of a new electric vehicle motor drive system may enhance the operational efficiency of the motor drive and minimize its pollutant emissions and energy losses. As an important part of the motor thermal management system, it is necessary to improve the design of the drive motor for the fan. This paper presents the design of a 12s-10p permanent magnet brushless DC motor with a rated speed of 2200 rpm and a rated voltage of 12 V based on finite element analysis. At this rated speed, the maximum torque the motor can output is 1.80 N·m. Then, we calculated the loading capacity of the motor by parameterizing the resistance in the circuit. We have built a prototype based on the design results and built a test bench to test the loading capacity of the prototype. A comparison revealed that the error between the experimental and calculated results was small. Accordingly, it is believed that this work is capable of serving as a theoretical guide for the design and manufacture of automotive cooling fans in the future.

Keywords

• brushless DC motor
• torque
• electromagnetic properties
• simulations
• bench test