Quality assessment of a 2D FE based lumped parameter electric motor thermal model using 3D FE models

This paper presents an advanced thermal lumped parameter model (LPM) for a switched reluctance motor for which the quality of the results is verified with a 3D finite element (FE) simulation. An advanced lumped parameter model is proposed, which extracts a 2D LPM from a 2D FE simulation in FEMM and extends this 2D LPM into 3D based on the regular LP techniques. The assumptions and simplifications in de 3D LPM are verified with a 3D FE model by comparing the simulated average and maximum component temperatures of the models. The comparison shows a maximum deviation of 7.1% on the average temperature and 10.9% on the maximum temperature. It is concluded that the proposed advanced 3D LPM is an efficient and sufficiently accurate method against 3D FEM