Comparative Analysis of Copper Clad Aluminum (CCA) Windings for Power Density Improvement

The electric vehicle market and the motor market have recently been focusing on lightweight designs and high specific power output. However, there are limited ways to enhance the specific power output of Radial Flux Motors (RFM), commonly used motors. To overcome the limitations of improving the specific power output of motors like RFMs, this study explored a method to increase specific power output by reducing the weight of the windings using Copper Clad Aluminum (CCA) windings. CCA windings are aluminum windings coated with copper, which offer advantages such as lower weight and cost compared to copper windings, and higher electrical conductivity and strength compared to aluminum windings. This study utilized Ansys Electronics Desktop 2024 R1, an electromagnetic analysis software using the finite element method, to compare the copper losses, total losses, efficiency, and specific power output of two types of CCA windings with pure copper windings, thereby validating the proposed method.