Electric motor
AssigneeGM Global Technology Operations LLC
InventorsGoro Tamai, Shawn H. Swales, Peter Bostwick
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An electric motor includes a rotor and a stator. The stator surrounds the rotor, has a top half, a bottom half, and wire windings, and is fixed with respect to the drive-unit housing. The stator is cooled by gravity feed via a fluid supplied by an external source and flowing onto and past the top half. The motor also includes a fluid dam fixed relative to the stator. The fluid dam is configured to guide the fluid around the stator and shield the rotor from the fluid flowing past the stator thereby limiting an amount of the fluid between the rotor and the stator such that spin losses in the electric motor are controlled. An electro-mechanical drive-unit employing the above described electric motor is also disclosed.
Claims20
An electro-mechanical drive-unit connectable with at least one power source for launching and propelling a vehicle, comprising:
- an input member and an output member;
- a drive-unit housing;
- a gearing arrangement operatively connected to each of the output and input members;
- a pump configured to circulate fluid inside the drive-unit housing;
- and
- an electric motor including:
- a rotor operatively connected to the gearing arrangement;
- a stator surrounding the rotor, having a top half, a bottom half, and wire windings, and fixed with respect to the drive-unit housing, wherein the stator is cooled by gravity feed via the fluid flowing onto and past the top half;
- and
- a fluid dam fixed relative to the drive-unit housing and configured to guide the fluid around the stator and shield the rotor from the fluid flowing past the top half of the stator, thereby limiting an amount of the fluid between the rotor and the stator such that spin losses in the electric motor are controlled.
An electric motor comprising:
- a rotor;
- a stator surrounding the rotor, having a top half, a bottom half, and wire windings, and fixed with respect to the drive-unit housing, wherein the stator is cooled by gravity feed via a fluid supplied by an external source and flowing onto and past the top half;
- and
- a fluid dam fixed relative to the stator and configured to guide the fluid around the stator and shield the rotor from the fluid flowing past the stator, thereby limiting an amount of the fluid between the rotor and the stator such that spin losses in the electric motor are controlled.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.