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| CSIRO | SOLVE | Issue 1 Nov 04 | |
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ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Driving the future
By Sue Neales
New electric motor technology has many potential uses.
Any household appliance that currently contains an electric motor – from dishwashers to air conditioners and water pumps – is likely to benefit in the years ahead from research underway at CSIRO. CSIRO has applied advanced techniques in design incorporating the use of rare earth permanent magnets to develop high efficiency electric motors. In vehicles, the advanced electric motor technology is already in the prototype phase, with the promise of fuel efficiency in standard cars being able to be doubled. For example, these electric drives have already been designed into the one-off “green” ECOmmodore demonstration car developed in collaboration with Holden, with great success. There are also new applications even where electric motors have not previously been used. Dr Collocott, theme leader in Clean Energy, explains that the CSIRO has gradually developed technology for the production of new generation electric motors, which offers a highly-desirable package of improved energy efficiency, greater power, and higher torque, all in a smaller motor. “There is a great diversity of applications where the CSIRO technology has relevance – from small motors in household appliances to an oil well mule motor where the drives are kilometres underground,” says Dr Collocott. “Besides their clear benefits in new generation cars, the biggest use of these high-speed electrical drives is likely to be in situations where, in the past, an electric motor was used together with a gear-box” “Now, for example in a range of actuators, it is possible to eliminate the gear box, and just use the electric motor to drive a shaft at various speeds, which has the advantage of a simpler mechanical mechanism, resulting in a lower cost and improved reliability. But, with world oil prices now over the $50 a barrel mark, Dr Collocott said the greatest application of the high efficiency motors was likely to be in cars, where the uptake of this technology offers better fuel consumption, a reduction in emissions and improved air quality. Laurie Sparke, head of production design at Holden, says use of the latest CSIRO electric motor technology enabled the ECOmmodore to attain optimal levels of energy efficiency using the hybrid combustion engine and electric motor combination, combined with low emissions. A bonus was that the size of the hybrid engine was no larger than the traditional engine of a stock Commodore. Dr Collocott said advances in a range of technologies – from rare earth
permanent magnets and power electronics to computational electromagnetics enabling
better machine design - had all contributed to the leaps forward in the development
of high efficiency electric motors now being made by CSIRO. For further information contact:
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Energy
efficiency is the name of the game when it comes to the latest electrical drives
now being developed by Dr Stephen Collocott and his Clean Energy team at CSIRO’s
Industrial Physics division in Sydney.
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