A thermal equivalent circuit to quantify the effect of thermal paste on heat flow through a PM machine

This paper describes the thermal modeling approach of a permanent magnet alternator (PMA), developed to investigate the quantitative effect of thermal paste added into the machine end winding region. A thermal lumped parameter network is proposed to investigate the principal heat flow paths for a flange mounted alternator. The thermal model is implemented in Simulink, which allows many different heat paths to be easily combined. Since addition of a thermal paste introduces new axial heat flow by conduction paths between the stator windings and frame, the developed thermal network considers the detailed heat flow paths when thermal paste is present. Experimental results are presented which validate the results.