Optimization for ventilation performance of air ducts for traction motor of locomotive

The arrangement of traction motor for ventilation and air duct directly affect the operating performance of locomotives. Due to the complex structure of modern locomotive, irregular bending or twisting section inevitably appear when designing air ducts, which bring lots of trouble for layout of air duct. It is necessary to apply modern design method in order to design ventilation system with good performance for traction motor. Numerical simulation study on internal flow field of the cooling system for traction motor of a locomotive is performed. The results show that the original design of the duct, especially the position of the clapboards is unreasonable. It lead to uniform airflow rate and bid difference of air pressure in the three outlets. It indicates that the original design can´t meet designing requirements. Some optimization schemes on the position of clapboard, by which the main air duct separated into three parts, have been proposed and numerically studied. By comparing the numerical results of the schemes, the best optimization scheme has been put forward, which shows excellent ventilation performance and small wind drag and the flux rate of air and the fluid pressure in the outlets meet design requirements.