Approach for Flexible Gripping and Sequential Alignment of Hairpin Baskets

Economic, legal and political developments as well as rapid technological advances in the field of e-mobility lead to dynamic markets and thus great uncertainty with regard to required quantities and technologies used. These challenges are also reflected in the production technology for electric traction motors, which is why existing rigid concepts must be supplemented by flexible approaches. In the context of electric traction motor production, the hairpin technology has recently established itself as the predominant winding technology for stators. It offers advantages on both the product and production sides compared to conventional round wire winding technologies. A process step of the hairpin technology that stands out in terms of tool costs and set-up effort is the gripping and insertion of the pre-assembled hairpin basket into the lamination stack. Familiar approaches lack flexibility with regard to diameter and the number of slots of the stator. Against this background, an approach is presented that is based on a basket gripper that is flexible in terms of diameter and number of slots and a subsequent sequential, slot-by-slot alignment of the hairpin basket. In addition to the analytical and simulative proof of feasibility, difficulties and a first prototype of the approach are presented.