Patent ID: 7631413

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a winding for an armature of an electro-mechanical machine having slots formed therein, the method comprising the steps of: (a) manufacturing a band of connected conductor elements having at least one layer; wherein after the band having at least one layer of connected conductor elements is formed, the band is expanded in a direction perpendicular to a longitudinal axis of the conductor elements in a central zone so that the central zones of the conductor elements are displaced parallel in predetermined orientation relative to one another; (b) configuring, selectively, the conductor elements of each layer of the band to a predetermined alignment orientation with respect to the slots of the armature of the electro-mechanical machine; (c) disposing the band on a mandrel tooling, wherein the conductor elements of the band each include a central zone and a pair of end zones disposed at opposing ends of the central zone; (d) defining at least two groups of the conductor elements, the conductor elements central zones of each group disposed in slots of a corresponding section of the mandrel tooling, such that the conductor elements central zones are fixed therein so that displacement of the central zones in a direction perpendicular to a longitudinal axis of the conductor elements in the central zone is prevented; (e) moving the corresponding sections of the mandrel tooling relative to one another in a predetermined direction perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the conductor elements in the central zone so that the central zones of conductor elements from different groups are disposed in a predetermined orientation relative to one another to define the winding; (f) moving the formed winding from the mandrel tooling for disposition into predetermined slots of the armature of the electro-mechanical machine, wherein the mandrel tooling includes a set of linear elements for a flat winding; and (g) disposing the configured conductor elements into predetermined slots of the armature of the electro-mechanical machine.