CFD Analysis of a Large G.E. Motor using FLUENT

Background

G.E. asked Fluent to model a complete motor assembly to:

Demonstrate the capability of Fluent’s pre and post processing tools and the solver.

Get a better understanding of flow behavior inside channels in the rotor, stator and the air gap in between.

Verify CFD’s potential in helping improve cooling passages’ design in complex rotating geometries.

Geometry

A Pro/E model of the assembly was provided

Meshing Strategy

Due to symmetry, a half model was developed.

Two non conformal interfaces were used to simplify mesh generation. TGrid was used to assemble meshed pieces together.

Porous media model was used to avoid resolving gaps smaller than 1 mm (overall motor dimension ~ 1.5 m).

Hybrid meshing was used to keep cell count reasonable. (6.4 million)