Optimal Design of Cooling Fan for 200kW Class Low Voltage Motor by Numerical Analysis

This study is to investigate the optimal design of cooling fan of low voltage motor. The cooling fan serves to control the temperature rise that may occur by electric loss of the motor. Cooling fans may affect airflow, temperature rise, noise and loss of a machine, so it is necessary to select the optimal cooling fan for the machines. The main factors that affect to the performance of the cooling fan are the outer diameter, width, angle, cross section and the number of the blade. This study has investigated key factors that may affect to the performance of the cooling fan by numerical analysis. For the numerical analysis, it has adapted a universal ANSYS FLEUTN CFD program and applied the k-ε turbulence model as turbulent flow is expected. In order to verify the reliability of the results of numerical analysis, a cooling fan was fabricated using a 3D printer, and airflow, temperature rise, mechanical loss, and efficiency of the cooling fan were compared by performance tests of the motor. The results have indicated that cooling fans in this study is verified in terms of the accuracy and reliability within about 4% of tolerance in the performance test.