Thermal Management of Drive Motor for Transportation: Analysis Methods, Key Factors in Thermal Analysis, and Cooling Methods—A Review

In recent years, the rapid development of the transportation industry has led more and more scholars to devote themselves to the research of its drive motor. Among all relevant aspects of research, thermal management is absolutely the one that has been neglected in the past but is now getting more and more attention. This article presents a comprehensive and detailed summary of motor thermal management for transportation, including thermal analysis methods, key factors in thermal analysis, and various cooling methods. First, the three mainstream thermal analysis methods are introduced, and the improvement of each method in recent years is summarized. The feasibility and advantages of multimethod united simulation are discussed, and some novel thermal analysis methods are also listed. Then, key factors in the thermal analysis are analyzed in depth, and the determination methods are given. In the fourth section, the research related to motor cooling methods in recent years is reviewed, including the improvement of traditional methods and novel methods. Finally, suggestions for the future development of thermal management are given. The key is not only to reveal novel analysis methods, tools, methodologies, cooling structures, strategies, pros and cons, and foresight for the advanced drive motor but also to provide guidelines for predicting the temperature distribution and selecting the appropriate cooling methods in the motor design process.