Method for Efficient Generation of Preferable Hairpin Winding Diagrams

Hairpin windings are widely used in state-of-the-art traction motors in electric vehicles. The main advantages over traditional round wire windings are the high copper fill factor and thus lower losses and thermal resistance, the short winding head, and a highly automatable manufacturing process. Hairpin windings offer an additional degree of freedom in connecting the conductors of the stator winding in the winding head, which can be used to improve the motor's electrical performance, such as being more resilient to the formation of circulating branch currents. However, due to the high complexity, evaluating every single possible winding configuration often exceeds the computational limits of today's computer hardware. This paper presents a fast and efficient new method to determine viable winding configurations using a new definition to describe the winding and an algorithm that utilizes termination criteria to quickly filter through all possible configurations. Its high modularity enables the developed software to be applied to any electric machine and allows for easy extension.