Experimental assessment of a fully predictive CFD approach, for flow of cooling air in an electric generator

A fully predictive computational fluid dynamics approach is assessed for the flow of cooling air in an axially cooled electric generator. The flow is driven solely by the rotation of the rotor, as in the real application. A part of the space outside the generator is included in the computational domain to allow for the flow of air into and out of the machine. This yields a flow prediction that is determined without the input of any experimental data. Two different choices of ‘surrounding’ outer boundary conditions are studied, and the mesh sensitivity is discussed.