CD Laboratory for Brushless drives for pump and fan applications

The efficient utilisation of electrical energy will play a key role in meeting the increasing global demand for energy in the future. Electric drives, such as those at the centre of this CD Laboratory, play an important role in this.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) assumes that the demand for electrical energy will increase by more than 70% between 2010 and 2035. The industry is therefore subject to increasingly stringent environmental protection requirements, which will be met in the field of drive technology in the future primarily through electrification and the utilisation of the energy-saving potential of modern variable-speed drive systems.

It is not only larger main drives - for example in the automotive industry - that are affected by this energy debate. In addition to the main drive, auxiliary drives in particular, such as fans and pumps for the thermal management of a vehicle, but also for household appliances and auxiliary units in other applications, require correspondingly large amounts of energy.

Many of the systems in which electric drives are used are becoming more and more technically sophisticated. As soon as they can be offered at acceptable prices while maintaining the usual level of comfort or increasing their attractiveness for the user, they will replace older systems. Hydraulic components, for example, or pumps and fans that are regulated by throttling the power flow, will sooner or later disappear. This presupposes that sufficient electrical energy can be made available and utilised efficiently. The efficiency of these components and their systems must therefore be significantly improved. Important levers here are weight, volume and material consumption.

This CD Laboratory researches the optimisation of integrated brushless drives with regard to several criteria. In such brushless drives, the travelling or rotating field required for operation is generated by electronic control or commutation. The rotor usually contains permanent magnets. The stator comprises the coils, which are controlled by an electronic circuit at staggered intervals in order to generate the travelling or rotating field required for torque generation.

In the first step, this CD Laboratory will create analytical and semi-analytical models for brushless drives with significantly improved efficiency and optimised speed and torque density. In a subsequent step, scaling rules are to be developed and cost factors taken into account so that the basic knowledge acquired can be transferred to production under real conditions by the company partners. Research will focus on designs optimised for production and on alternative drives.

It is expected that the results of this basic research will be essential for the development of product lines for future brushless drives that are optimised with regard to the various criteria and will thus make an important contribution to securing the energy supply of the future.