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Lookup NU author(s): Farshid Mahmouditabar, Professor Nick BakerORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
This paper showcases a systematic procedure to design the most efficient re design of a commercially available induction machine to be used as a traction motor in an Electric Freight Locomotive for the rail journey from Tehran to Mashhad. Using Taguchi optimization, copper and aluminium wound versions of the machine are optimized for an 1870-ton load locomotive with a peak power of 1203kW. The driving cycle is summarized using the K-means clustering method to obtain representative points. Full details of the drive cycle and guiding rail adhesion modelling are given and subsequently used in a sequential multi-physics and multi-operation mode robust procedure which optimizes the geometry and cooling parameters whilst taking manufacturing tolerances into account. The paper thus presents a thorough comparative study of aluminium-based and copper-based designs to meet a realistic Electric Freight Locomotive specification. Results indicated that the proposed approach is effective in optimum and robust design of conventional and aluminium induction machines and can be applied to other machine types operating on other rail journeys. Switching to aluminium is one way of improving the recyclability of motors, but in the scenario considered here, results in a 1.1% reduction in efficiency over the driving cycle.
Author(s): Mahmouditabar F, Baker NJ
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: IEEE Access
Year: 2025
Volume: 12
Pages: 38786-38800
Online publication date: 12/03/2024
Acceptance date: 06/03/2024
Date deposited: 19/02/2025
ISSN (electronic): 2169-3536
Publisher: IEEE
URL: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3376508
DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3376508
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