A Practical Approach for Estimating Bundle-Level Proximity Losses in AC Machines

Losses created by skin and proximity effects can be significant in medium to high-speed ac machine designs. These have been extensively studied for form wound coil machines, but regarding randomly-placed round-wire windings, bundle-level proximity losses have been either neglected, computed via finite element (FE) simulations or estimated analytically by methods that require to know the location of each strand within the slot. This article presents a practical, yet accurate method to estimate bundle-level proximity losses in random-wound ac machines without having to specify the location of each individual conductor. The method consists on approximating the turn size and the arrangement of the conductors within the slot from the overall dimensions of the slot and the winding via simple expressions. This procedure is successfully validated via FE simulations and by constructing and experimentally testing two Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine prototypes with different winding characteristics.