Heat transfer inside rotating coolant channels have a significant impact in design of gas turbine airfoils and other rotating components such as generator windings.  The effects of the Coriolis acceleration and centrifugal buoyancy have a significant impact on heat transfer behavior inside such rotating coolant channels due to the complex flow patterns of coolant.  Detailed heat transfer knowledge greatly enhances the designers\' ability to validate numerical models of newly designed channels. A rotating experimental rig was designed and built to model scaled up coolant channels at speeds up to 750 rotations per minute (rpm).  A camera is mounted onto the rotating test section and a transient liquid crystal technique is used to measure detailed heat transfer coefficients on a surface of interest.  The experimental set-up is innovative, as it involves no surface heating of the test section, very little instrumentation beyond a few thermocouples and a spray coating of thermochromic liquid crystals on the test surface.  To validate the test rig and the experimental method, multipass coolant channels with rib turbulators, large diameter radially outward channels with rib turbulators, and jet impingement cooling schemes are studied during rotation.  90deg, W, and M-shaped rib enhancements are studied and detailed heat transfer measurements clearly capture the heat transfer enhancement mechanisms with and without rotation.  Jet impingement schemes with single and double rows, normal and off-angle jets, and a cross flow outlet condition are all studied under rotation.  Non-rotating studies are also performed for baseline comparisons to rotating conditions.  Large aspect ratio, diverging channels with dimple and rib turbulators are studied in a stationary condition.  Results for all different test geometries show good comparisons with published studies indicating that the rotating rig and experimental method are valid.  Jet impingement schemes produce higher heat transfer compared to the two-pass channels with ribs, however pressure losses are significantly higher.  The fewer the jets and H/d=1 produces the highest pressure losses with no significant gain in heat transfer.  Off angle jets at H/d=1 produces very high pressure losses with no heat transfer advantage.  A final study with radially outward coolant channels is performed with the highest rotation speeds.  The structure, test section, and camera are thoroughly designed to withstand the exceptional g-forces.  Heat transfer in the radial channels with and without rotation show very little effect of rotation due to the small rotation number. / Ph. D.

Electrical machines have been widely used along the last decades with large life length under operating conditions. However, they will become more important in the upcoming years because of the emerging electric car industry. Thus, the maintenance cost of this technology can be reduced by extending the lifetime in the electrical machines. Despite the fact that existing numerous studies within the life length in these devices, only few study the effect of the thermomechanical stresses of insulation. The core of this master thesis is to study the influence of these stresses in the insulation material of a winding. The tested electrical machines were subjected to different test conditions, allowing to analyse multiple aging effects in the winding. To achieve these effects, power cycling tests were carried out on stators, where the windings were tested in cycles with different ΔT and two cooling methods: air cooling and oil cooling. The results showed large aging differences between the two cooling methods employed. The aging effect in the oil cooling method was higher than in the air cooling method for the same number of cycles. However, the aging effects regarding the same cooling process had not wide differences between the different test temperatures.