Does anyone know if there are any (BLDC preferably) motors designed ground-up for being run with watercooling? Or can any of you motordesigning people give input on pros and cons?
My initial thoughts would be, that it would probably weigh somewhat less. While some weight will be structural integrity, I'd think one would save some metal weight with a liquid cooled motor, even with the extra liquid weight? More importantly, one could run it in higher power due to active liquid cooling presumably? I mean most motors usually have cont rating, 5min 2min 1min etc ratings and peaks. Could a liquid cooled run nearer to max continuously? This would result in a seriously improved power/weight rating.
Or are there parts within motors that are just not possible to get within "close enough" distance of the watercooling (close as in short enough thermal route) that will still prevent running at high powers for too long? Even if the design is made groundup for being watercooled?
Currently it seems to me that thermal limits and mechanical limits of motors are not very close to each other, considering prolonged high power use such as cruising at high speeds compared to max motor power available (for example my ICE motorcycle has topend around 160 something km/h and I often cruise at 130s, and on faster roads even at 140-150s, it's running quite near max power at those times for quite a while, even up to an hour ... and it's funny that the fuel use doesn't change that much doing that because it runs in more efficient powerband and seems like the bike has pretty low drag =P).
My initial thoughts would be, that it would probably weigh somewhat less. While some weight will be structural integrity, I'd think one would save some metal weight with a liquid cooled motor, even with the extra liquid weight? More importantly, one could run it in higher power due to active liquid cooling presumably? I mean most motors usually have cont rating, 5min 2min 1min etc ratings and peaks. Could a liquid cooled run nearer to max continuously? This would result in a seriously improved power/weight rating.
Or are there parts within motors that are just not possible to get within "close enough" distance of the watercooling (close as in short enough thermal route) that will still prevent running at high powers for too long? Even if the design is made groundup for being watercooled?
Currently it seems to me that thermal limits and mechanical limits of motors are not very close to each other, considering prolonged high power use such as cruising at high speeds compared to max motor power available (for example my ICE motorcycle has topend around 160 something km/h and I often cruise at 130s, and on faster roads even at 140-150s, it's running quite near max power at those times for quite a while, even up to an hour ... and it's funny that the fuel use doesn't change that much doing that because it runs in more efficient powerband and seems like the bike has pretty low drag =P).