Professor Haran's students Sherry Yu and Samith Sirimanna in front of JCI chiller

Sherry Yu and Samith Sirimanna in front of chiller

In January, Professor Haran’s group visited Johnson Controls (JCI) where they met with engineering leads on their jointproject,“Development of High Efficiency Compressor Motor Design Project – Phase I Summary and Phase II Launching.”

JCI is to provide specifications on the number of speed cycles, fatigue life, windage loss-model validation, and cooling results: scaling down the thermals from sample shown for the prototype, along with best estimates in rotor average/max temperature, copper average/max temperature, and shaft size: possible reduction on shaft diameter in rotor to get more space for rotor slots.

Kiruba’s group is to work on scalability of the designs, and return with a detailed plan that takes into account the impact of the air gap and switching frequency.

Professor Haran's group at Johnson Controls

Left to right: Students Samith Sirimanna, Sherry Yu, Byung Hoon (BH) Min and post-doc Dongsu Lee with JCI personnel

The compressor they are designing for is a part in the chiller (above). The chiller in active use  supplies chilled water (6–12 °C) to the building.