Overview on Design of Electric Coolant Pump for Automotive Application

Electric coolant pump and electric coolant circulation pumps are one of the main auxiliary devices that can be used to cool the power train components and other accessories such as cabin heating, battery cooling and electronic circuits cooling. Design process of electric coolant pump starts with the target requirement of flow input, which is used to calculate the torque, speed and power of the motor to arrive at the motor specifications. In this overview, the concept of radial field motor and claw pole motor are taken for study. The design of critical parameters of the stator core and its optimization to reduce the core loss, torque ripple is emphasized. The stator core material selection and the appropriate manufacturing methods are explained in detail which allows the designer to optimize the stator core design in terms of performance, cost and compactness. Since the rotor portion of the motor is exposed to the coolant, selection of material of the magnet and process of fixing of magnet with rotor is critical in optimizing the size and cost of the motor. Different forms of rotor magnet, its material selection, manufacturing methods, and magnetization techniques are also briefed to optimize the rotor design. Finally, the design of controller and its component selection for the radial field motor and claw pole motor is studied and compared with the experimental results.