Patent ID: 7589441

Claim:
An apparatus for cooling a stator of the type having a plurality of windings, each winding being electrically insulated from others of the windings and wound along an axis of a stator, the apparatus comprising a cooling member thermally coupled to an external surface of the windings, the cooling member having at least one passage extending there through for receiving a coolant from an external source and wound around the axis of the stator with at least one revolution, wherein the windings of the stator are configured to define an inner bore surface and an outer bore surface and the cooling member includes a plurality of circumferentially wound tubes, a first one of the circumferentially wound tubes thermally coupled to the inner bore surface and a second one of the circumferentially wound tubes thermally coupled to the outer bore surface, and wherein the windings of the stator are radially spaced from a longitudinal axis of the stator and are circumferentially spaced from each other, with alternate ones of the windings having end regions which extend radially away from the axis, the cooling member further including an end region circumferentially wound tube thermally coupled to the radially-extending end regions.