Simulation of wire bending processes in continuous wave winding stator production

Abstract: Electric propulsion in the heavy truck industry require knowledge in certain new areas involved in electric machine manufacturing. One of these new manufacturing steps is copper bending for production of stator windings. This thesis aimed to look at whether finite element simulations can be used in gathering experience to improve an existing stator design. Existing winding scheme is modeled, and simplified cases of different bending steps are simulated using finite element method. The result shows the critical areas where the largest stress and strain occurs in the existing design, giving input of how the bending affects the copper wire as well as the isolation layer of the wire, to improve future bending scheme designs.