Computationally-Efficient Thermal Analysis of a Low-Speed High-Thrust Linear Electric Actuator with a 3D Thermal Network Approach

Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Linear Motors (PMSLM) are more and more frequently used as all-electric direct-drive actuators in those applications where a force needs to be developed along a fixed direction. In this paper, an accurate 3D thermal model of a PMSLM is derived through a lumped-parameter network approach which exploits all the symmetries in the actuator structure to maximize the spatial density of nodes. Numerically-efficient techniques are then proposed to solve the thermal network analytically. Some experimental validations are finally presented based on the thermal testing of a laboratory prototype.