Al Magnet Wire Motors

Now that my utility is calling Cu a "precious metal" in its anti-wire
theft campaign what is the status of Al wound motor development?

Supposedly the WWII era Al motors burned up easily but there shouldn't
be any reason why they couldn't be protected very cheaply nowdays.

If a motor costs several cents/watt and develops 1 W/gm a motor and
the cost of copper is 1 cent/gm maybe a third of the cost is copper.

Bret Cahill

Aluminum is used in the cast rotors of squirrel cage induction motors
to replace copper where cost is more important than efficiency or
where the higher resistance of aluminum is indeed more important.
What would concern me the most about aluminum is its apparent tendency
to fatigue quicker than copper.

So there is always _some_ flexing or movement of magnet wire no matter
how tightly wound?

There are physical stresses on the coil due to the magnetic forces.

Al has no fatigue limit. Sooner or later, with enough cycling, it
will crack.

I presume you meant it HAS a fatique limit.
A fatigue limit just means the material can be stressed an infinite
number of times below that limit, i. e. a steel in a watch spring.
If a material doesn't have a fatigue limit, i. e., an Al in an
aircraft wing, then, no matter how low the strains, with enough
cycling, it is 100% guaranteed to crack.

At first it sounds crazy to intentionally design a plane with wings
that are 100% guaranteed to, sooner or later, fall off, but the stress
profile over the life of a wing is hard to predict, microbursts, rough
landings, etc., so using a material with a fatigue limit doesn't help
a designer much in predicting reliability. Al structures can easily
last longer than steel that occasionally cycles above its fatigue
limit.

In actual practice aircraft designers just keep the strains so low
that 99.999% of the time the wing will last ten thousand years. Do a
cost/benefit risk analysis to optimize your overall odds at survival
and wing fatigue failure will be at the bottom of the list.

In fact, lot of lives probably could be saved _overall_ by shifting
toward fuel efficiency and away from overly robust wings. The big
picture must be spread sheeted.

Steel would be even cheaper and the strains could be designed under
its fatigue limit. It could then cycle forever without breaking.

Unfortunately its conductivity is vastly lower;
Alloys seem to have lower conductivities than their pure element
parent metals. The conductivity of iron might be higher than a steel
but it's too brittle.

What about carbon fiber?

it is however common
to include steel wire in the multistrand core of overhead transmission
lines. Motors are however wound with single strand wire.

I understand what you mean about the lack of fatigue limit. It would
no doubt be possible to make a steel wired motor as well as an
aluminum unit. The question is: what will happen to the wieght, size,
cost and efficiency of such a motor?
I once rewound a fan motor with copper of the same gauge. I couldn't
get the coils tight and the fan never quite had the power of the
original. I'm guessing it drew even more current than the original
because there was less of an inductive effect to restrict current.
Basically it was a short. The number of turns was less than the
original but this would also be true for a tight Al coil using the
same motor frame.

The effect on the field should be similar for the tight Al as the
loose Cu using the same motor frame.

Maybe this could be mitigated somewhat if a motor could be
specifically designed for a lower conductivity wire, but there still
is no way to avoid at least some loss in efficiency.

.. . .

I might add
that the lastest Airbus A380 transmits its power electrically using
aluminium wiring instead of hydraulically.
No one mentions it because it was so gradual but the reliability of
electric motors has gone way up. It's hard to find a vehicle without
power windows and the windows always seem to work.

The relative cost of electric motors for power has always been low.
That's why efficiency won't be easily sacrificed for cost. The cost
of the electricity passing through a stationary motor running 24/7 is
easily an order of magnitude more than the motor itself.

In contrast a rechargeable battery costs at least twice as much as the
electricity it will ever hold in its lifetime.

To be sure an EV doesn't run 24/7 but if an EV lasted 100 years the
cost of supplying batteries to an EV might cost 20X more than the
electric motors.

The place to sacrifice efficiency to reduce costs is the battery.

Either the initial cost must be very low or it must cycle tens of
thousands of times.


Bret Cahill
 
On Nov 7, 11:49 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 04:31:41 -0800 (PST), eunome...@yahoo.com.au wrote:
I might add
that the lastest Airbus A380 transmits its power electrically using
aluminium wiring instead of hydraulically.

---
Thanks for the info; I'll _never_ fly in an A380.

JF
Just as worrisome is the hydraulics: there have been many total
hydraulic loss incidents.
The aviation industry tell you about their 3 or 4 'redundant'
hydraulic systems

Japan Airlines flight 123 by failure or pressurization bulkhead bear
tail apu.
United Airlines Flight 232 by engine disintegration
DHL/EAT A300 With No Hydraulics After Being Hit By Missile.

Basically the 'triplicated' hydraulic systems all route next to each
other. Should a traumatic event
damage all three then they all bleed out. At least with electrical
systems circuit breakers disconnect the faulty system. In hydraulics
once the fluid is gone then that's it.
 
On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 21:11:12 -0800 (PST), eunometic@yahoo.com.au wrote:

On Nov 7, 11:49 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 04:31:41 -0800 (PST), eunome...@yahoo.com.au wrote:
I might add
that the lastest Airbus A380 transmits its power electrically using
aluminium wiring instead of hydraulically.

---
Thanks for the info; I'll _never_ fly in an A380.

JF

Just as worrisome is the hydraulics: there have been many total
hydraulic loss incidents.
The aviation industry tell you about their 3 or 4 'redundant'
hydraulic systems

Japan Airlines flight 123 by failure or pressurization bulkhead bear
tail apu.
United Airlines Flight 232 by engine disintegration
DHL/EAT A300 With No Hydraulics After Being Hit By Missile.

Basically the 'triplicated' hydraulic systems all route next to each
other. Should a traumatic event
damage all three then they all bleed out. At least with electrical
systems circuit breakers disconnect the faulty system. In hydraulics
once the fluid is gone then that's it.
---
I wasn't arguing electrical VS hydraulic, I was arguing aluminum VS
copper.

JF
 

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