Investigation of lumped-parameter thermal model and thermal parameters test for IPMSM

A lumped-parameter thermal network accounting for mounting plate is established to predict temperature rise of interior permanent magnet synchronous motors (IPMSM). With an improved DC thermal test proposed in this paper, some important thermal parameters in the thermal network are estimated, such as the equivalent thermal resistance between housing and ambient, the equivalent thermal conductivity between winding and lamination and the thermal interface gap between housing and lamination and so on. With the thermal network, the temperature of every motor component can be predicted. The performance of the thermal model is validated by finite element analysis (FEA) and experiments on test motors. In addition, the thermal model sensitivity to key thermal parameters is studied. The research can offer references for motor design and motor thermal analysis.