10 foot Axial Mill From Flat Plate 2

[brianc4]

Here is part 2 of my flat plate axial mill. This is where I am deviating somewhat from existing designs I have seen. I have seen several designs leaving part of the magnets un-potted in resin for a fan cooling effect. What I am going to give a whirl so to speak is leve the magnets completly unpotted and add some cooling fins. I really dont know if it is worth it or wheather the fins will mess up the magnet flux but nothing ventured nothing gained!

The first step was to beadblast the mill scale off of the magnet rotors as in the picture above.

Here is the Magnet & cooling fin alignment jig setting on the first rotor.

Here is the first cooling fin tacked on.

Here I have all of the fins tacked on & ready to weld.

Here is a picture af all of the cooling fins welded on. Nice thing about heliarc is the small heat affected zone very little warpage. Actually it improved the plate some it was warped a little to start with so I put the fins on the opposite side and it came out fairly flat.I am having some problems getting the next picture I uploaded to display so I am going to re upload it and pick up from here with part 3.

[Flux]

The fans are probably a reasonable idea but will be quite useless unless you give the air access through the centre of the rotor discs and I see no indication of this.

It's a bit tricky with most designs, the hub prevents access from the back and the prop masks the front. If you build backwards from the conventional with the front disc on the hub flange ( where it additionally gives the prop maximum support) you can space the rear disc backwards and it can have some decent air ducts. You seem to have more overhang from the tower so you would have room to adopt this method.

Flux

[TomW]

Flux;

Pretty slick idea on the hub placement for air flow.

I am not well versed in fluid dynamics [airflow] but could you put the vanes on one half of one rotor set to scoop air in and other half to fling it out?

If that makes sense?

Maybe then you could get airflow without the redesign of hub mountings. My mind tells me it would flow across the face in one side and out another?

Just thinking out loud.

Tom

[brianc4]

Tom,

My original idea was exactly what you are thinking. I was going to orient the curve of the fins on one plate opposite of the other. However what I hadn't mentioned is that I am putting a weather shroud around the Rotors & stator with an opening in front and in the back for air flow around the stator All the fins have to do is create a higher pressure area inside the shroud to draw air in the smaller  opening & push it out the bigger opening. That is my hope anyway!

I just made a post with a drawing that shows the setup better than I can explain it.

It may work or it may not but I felt it was worth a try.

Brian

[Chagrin]

The "scooping air in" part doesn't work. Try reversing a squirrel cage motor and you'll find that the centrifugal force always wins out.

[TomW]

Aww, I figured I was missing some basic point why it didn't play by my rules.

Good to know.

Tom