Some suppliers of motor development & manufacturing Additive Drives +49 3731 274 5047 www.additive-drives.de BorgWarner +1 248 754 9200 www.borgwarner.com Carpenter Technology +1 610 208 2000 www.carpentertechnology.com Danfoss +45 74 88 22 22 www.danfoss.com Equipmake +44 1953 661200 www.equipmake.co.uk Grob Werke +49 8261 996 777 www.grobgroup.com Helix +44 1908 278 600 www.ehelix.com Inetic +44 1264 334 095 www.inetic.co.uk LH Carbide +1 260 432 5563 www.lhindustries.com Marposs +39 051 899111 www.marposs.com Syensqo +32 2 264 19 00 www.syensqo.com Turntide +1 408 402 4051 www.turntide.com Traxial +32 499 22 52 25 www.traxial.com YASA +44 1865 952 100 www.yasa.com 72 importance to bending processes,” its expert says. “We have the opportunity to combine conventional and additive manufacturing into a hybrid approach, and thus make additive manufacturing scalable. We are also proficient in various forms of laser welding for the production of stators in large quantities.” While in low-volume production it can make sense for a worker to spend a couple of hours or a day, depending on the motor, to put the windings onto the stator/rotor cores, as soon as you start manufacturing at scale it isn’t feasible to have that kind of takt time, according to another expert. “Automated winding is really key as you start scaling up.” He says it can be hard to automate the winding of stranded wire. “When you’re getting towards the end and looking at clamping all those materials together to create your star point or form your end winding, it’s sometimes difficult to know exactly where each strand of wire is.” With automation of hairpin windings, however, cameras and image-processing software can compare the positions of the hairpin ends before welding. While assembly processes remain essentially the same, the expert says they have to be rethought to take the human element out. With “hot dropping” of a thermally expanded motor casing over a stator, for example, very little tooling is required if it is done manually at low volume. A worker might put the housing in an oven, take it out, push it over the stator with gloves on, and allow it to cool to achieve an interference fit – with the only tooling required being a step fixture to prevent the housing from being pushed too far. Automating the process would probably need more than one machine, however. “You would use induction coils to heat that housing up while a robot held it, and then the robot would take it onto the next stage and hold it over the stator, where pneumatic rams would push it on, and then you would force-cool it,” the expert says. Running sub-component production alongside the main manufacturing lines, so they can feed into them, facilitates tight quality control throughout the entire process, another expert points out. This is critical, both through upfront inspection with automated, coordinated measuring machines (CMM) and after production with end-of-line test dynamometers, he adds. As manufacturing technology continues to evolve, the company expects greater emphasis on and advancement towards full automation of production and material handling. “This includes flexible tooling, fully automated axial stator-winding machines, improved additive manufacturing processes for mass production, and the introduction of higher insulation class, high mechanical performance, lightweight materials to improve the weight and efficiency of motors,” the expert says. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the following for their help with this article: Jakob Jung, chief executive technical officer at Additive Drives; Rolf Blissenbach, chief engineer, e-drive generic & platform, and Bernhard Schmitt, global engineering director, electric motors at BorgWarner; Jaydip Das, senior manager, applications engineering at Carpenter Electri cation; Red Blaylock, traction leader at Inetic; Barry Lee, VP, technology at LH Carbide Corporation; Adam Nixon, head of engineering for motors, Matrishvan Raval, head of product, and Gary Stevens, thermo uids & emag engineering lead at Turntide Technologies. Focus | Motor development and manufacturing July/August 2024 | E-Mobility Engineering Finished motors undergo a series of climatic, vibration, EMC and material suitability tests to evaluate their compliance with the standard to which they are built (Image courtesy of Turntide)
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