Comparative Thermal Analysis of Carbon Nanotubes and Their Metal Composites with Copper and Aluminum as Winding Material in Induction Motor

The ability to predict the thermal transport properties of electrical, electronic, and mechanical components becomes increasingly important as characteristic material sizes shrink to the micron and nanometre scale. The maximum hot-spot temperature is one of the thermal and electrical efficiency design constraints. In this paper, the thermal analysis of a three-phase induction machine is investigated by means of replacing the winding materials. The temperature distribution is evaluated from a two-dimensional finite element approach, using COMSOL Multiphysics software. The temperature rise has been analyzed when conventional winding materials are substituted by novel nanomaterials, namely, carbon nanotube, carbon nanotube aluminum, and carbon nanotube copper composite wires. Overall, the proposed model with carbon nanotube copper composite wire winding machine shows better thermal performance among the studied carbon-based winding materials. Thus, we conclude that the carbon nano-based materials for thermal management in electrical machine winding provide a viable and effective alternative to existing materials.