I.1.13 - Integrated Traction Drive Thermal Management (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

This project is part of a multi-lab consortium including multiple universities, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and Ames Laboratory that leverages research expertise and facilities at the national labs, universities, and industry to significantly increase electric drive power density and reliability while simultaneously reducing cost. To enable the mass market penetration of electric-drive vehicles and to meet consumer electric vehicle performance expectations, the US DRIVE 2017 Electrical and Electronics Technical Team Roadmap proposes aggressive research and development targets aimed at reducing cost and increasing electric traction drive system power density to 33 kW/L by 2025. The target includes high-voltage power electronics (PE) and a single traction-drive electric motor. Achieving this level of system power density would most likely require integration of the inverter and the electric motor into a single traction module. However, this approach will also require innovative thermal management solutions to provide adequate cooling to more densely packed electrical components and keep their operating temperatures within optimal range. Integrated Traction Drive Thermal Management project goals are to research and evaluate motor-integrated power electronics concepts and thermal management solutions for electric traction drives, identify optimal thermal management approaches and to provide support to other collaborating researcher teams of Electric Drive Technologies (EDT) Consortium in thermal management aspects for their integrated drive concepts. The report summarizes project's accomplishments for FY21.