Improved thermal management of electrical vehicles using internal magnetic field of the electric motors

Arslan B., ERTÜRK H.

APPLIED THERMAL ENGINEERING, vol.273, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)

Abstract

Improved cooling performance is required to ensure system durability and reliability of electric motors used for electric vehicles and single phase axial liquid cooling is widely used for efficient thermal performance. In this study, the utilization of the internal magnetic field is introduced for a permanent magnet synchronous motor that has six axial cooling channels embedded between the coils to improve cooling performance. The magnetic field for this motor is estimated and its effect on cooling performance is identified through numerical analysis. Magnetohydrodynamic effects are achieved using Cu-water/ethylene glycol magnetic nanofluids at varying particle volume fractions (up to 1%) and volume flow rates from 25 L/min to 35 L/min. 64% increase in the convection heat transfer coefficient is observed at a flow rate of 25.8 L/min with a 1% volume fraction. The utilization of magnetohydrodynamic effects leads to a notable reduction in motor temperatures up to 13%, and improvement in the cooling capacity up to 20%, thereby enhancing the endurance limits by up to 218%. The utilization of magnetohydrodynamics effects in this study proves to be advantageous to enhance the overall performance of the cooling system in the motor and the innovative cooling approach proposed in this study does not need any additional equipment.