Innovative Bonding and Spray-Forming Techniques for Cost-Effectively Producing High Performance Induction Motors

40816 November 13, 1996 SatCon Technology Corporation While cost-effective, high performance electric motors are crucial to the success of any electric or hybrid-electric vehicle program, their manufacturability is the primary impediment to their development. This project will decrease manufacturing costs by developing new fabrication techniques for rotor assemblies and thinly laminated stator stacks. The rotor assembly concept involves using an innovative bonding technique to assemble a net-shape copper squirrel cage to a net-shape magnetic core. The laminated stack concept involves using an advanced spray-forming process to fabricate cores of arbitrarily thin laminations in a one-step process. Phase I will demonstrate the feasibility of using these techniques to make electric motors with a performance-to-cost ratio that will make them economically viable, thus bringing electric automobiles another step closer to reality. Anticipated Results/Potential Commercial Applications as described by the awardee: Most applications that use rotating machinery or require high power-to-weight ratios can enjoy an efficiency improvement through higher rotational speeds. Electric vehicles and next-generation high-speed turbo machines (e.g., HVAC compressors) are the nearest-term and largest market applications for cost-effective, high-performance electric motors.