WP 4: FAN THERMAL MANAGEMENT

This deliverable gives a description of the fan thermal management solution taken to cool the electric motor for the mixed flow fan solution established as the selected preliminary design.

A description is given on the overall thermal dissipation structure, with more detail given on the electric motor design point, thermal losses, and the corresponding design of its parts (e.g. bearings).

From this design process, the dissipation levels are determined, and used for the simulations carried out, which give a very detailed information of the thermal behaviour of the unit, the temperature levels, the heat flux distribution between hulls and blades, etc.

However, as explained before, the mixed flow fan design was discarded in favor of the axial flow design. Anyway, this thermal dissipation solution is topologically similar to the one that could be applied on an axial fan (annular flow with stator blades acting as dissipation fins), therefore the work done here has been also very useful for the last design, that resulted in axial configuration.

(Temperature distribution. Left: simplified model with only the solid parts. Right: complete model with both solid and fluid domains.)