Abstract

The latest developments in carbon nanotube (CNT) wires and yarns attract great interest for potential application to electromagnetic devices, such as electrical machines and transformers. The CNT material properties are largely different from copper and aluminum in terms of electrical conductivity, mass density, and thermal transfer, creating a new design paradigm for which the traditional rules and device topologies no longer apply. This paper proposes a brushless permanent magnet multidisc axial flux construction with coreless stator and special windings and minimal rotor back iron, as a suitable topology for CNT winding application. Specific analytical closed-form sizing equations, as a function of winding electric conductivity, machine dimensions, and operating speed/frequency, are derived and employed in a systematic comparative study over a range of kW power ratings and speeds between 1,000 and 10,000 rpm. The numerical study is complemented by 3D and 2D electromagnetic FEA. The results show that the designs with CNT windings may have substantially higher specific power per mass, particularly at high rotational speeds and/or supply frequency, where the combined effect of DC and AC conduction losses in the windings is significant.

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

9-2016

Notes/Citation Information

Published in 2016 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE).

© 2016 IEEE Copyright Notice. “Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.”

The document available for download is the authors’ manuscript version that is accepted for publication. The final published version is copyrighted by IEEE and available as: V. Rallabandi, N. Taran, D. M. Ionel and J. F. Eastham, “On the feasibility of carbon nanotube windings for electrical machines — Case study for a coreless axial flux motor,” 2016 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), Milwaukee, WI, 2016, pp. 1-7. doi: 10.1109/ECCE.2016.7855306

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1109/ECCE.2016.7855306

Funding Information

The support of University of Kentucky, the L. Stanley Pigman endowment, and ANSYS, Inc. is gratefully acknowledged.

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