Electric motor rotor with conformal heat pipes

A rotor for an electric machine comprising:

• a shaft;
• a rotor core disposed on the shaft, the rotor core having a plural number of cavities internal to the rotor core, each one of the cavities defined by the rotor core forming walls of each cavity, the cavities configured as flux barriers to provide desirable magnetic properties of the rotor core;
• a magnetic element disposed in at least some of the cavities leaving a void in each of the at least some of the cavities between the magnetic element and the wall;
• a heat pipe evaporator disposed in at least some of the voids and contacting the respective magnetic element and the wall to remove heat from the rotor core;
• an end ring disposed on the shaft and supporting the rotor core, the end ring coupled with each of the heat pipe evaporators as a condenser;
• and
• a liquid cooling system for cooling the rotor core, wherein the liquid cooling system includes a pump configured with a controller to reduce fluid pumping with the heat pipe evaporator removing heat from the rotor core and to increase pumping when additional cooling is required.

A rotor for an electric machine comprising:

• a shaft;
• a rotor core disposed on the shaft, the rotor core having a plural number of cavities internal to the rotor core, each one of the cavities defined by walls formed by the rotor core, the cavities configured as flux barriers to provide desirable magnetic properties of the rotor core;
• a magnetic element disposed in at least some of the cavities leaving a void in each of the at least some of the cavities between the respective magnetic element and the walls;
• a heat pipe evaporator disposed in at least some of the voids and contacting the magnetic element and the wall to remove heat from the rotor core;
• and
• an end ring disposed on the shaft and supporting the rotor core, the end ring coupled with each of the heat pipe evaporators as a condenser, the condenser and the heat pipe evaporators forming a unitary subassembly unit,
• wherein the end ring includes an outer surface with a dam forming a step, wherein the rotor has a liquid cooling system configured to direct liquid over the outer surface and over the dam to cool the condenser.