This study provides an overview of new trends in the development of cooling systems for electric motors. It includes a summary of academic research and patents for cooling systems implemented by leading motor manufacturers at TRL9. New trends in the cooling management of air and liquid cooling systems are discussed and analyzed with a focus on temperature distribution and its influence on the power-to-dimension ratio of electric motors. The prevailing cooling method for synchronous and asynchronous motors is air cooling using external fins, air circulation ducts, air gaps, and fan impellers to enhance efficiency and reliability. Internal cooling with rotor and stator ducts, along with optimized air duct geometry, shows potential to increase the power-to-dimension ratio and reduce motor size. Liquid cooling systems offer a power-to-dimension ratio of up to 25 kW/kg, achieved through redesigned cooling ducts, stator heat exchangers, and cooling tubes. However, liquid cooling systems are complex, requiring maintenance and high ingress protection ratings. They are advantageous for providing high power-to-dimension ratios in vehicles and aircraft. Discussions on using different refrigerants to improve efficient motor cooling are underway, with ozone-friendly natural refrigerants like CO₂ considered to be promising alternatives to low-pressure refrigerants with high global warming potential.

An increase in gas turbine efficiency is possible by inlet air cooling in chillers converting a heat of exhaust gas into refrigeration. In traditional absorption lithium-bromide chillers of a simple cycle an inlet air can be cooled to 15°С. More decrease of turbine inlet air temperature and greater fuel saving accordingly is possible in refrigerant ejector chiller as a simple in design and cheap. The innovative turbine inlet air cooling (TIC) system with absorption chiller as a high-temperature and ejector chiller as a low-temperature stages for cooling air to 7 or 10 °C is proposed. Its application in temperate climate provides annual fuel saving by 1.5 to 2 times higher compared with traditional air cooling in absorption chiller to 15 °C. A novel universal method of analysing the efficiency of TIC system operation and rational designing has been developed. The method involves the simple numerical simulation based on real input data of site actual climatic conditions. The annual fuel saving is chosen as a primary criterion. The novelty of the methodological approach consists in replacing the current yearly changeable fuel reduction due to TIC by its hour-by-hour summation as an annual fuel saving. The increment of annual fuel saving referred to needed refrigeration capacity of TIC system is used as an indicator to select a design refrigeration capacity. A rational design refrigeration capacity determined by applying the novel methodology allows to decrease the TIC system sizes by 10 to 20% compared with traditional designing issuing from the peaked thermal load during a year. So far as it was developed analytically by introducing quite reasonable criterion indicator and based on the simple summation procedure the method is quite applicable for designing in power and energy.

The fuel efficiency of marine diesel engine as any combustion engine falls with raising the temperature of air at the suction of its turbocharger. Therefore, cooling the engine turbocharger intake air by recovering exhaust gas heat to refrigeration capacity is a very perspective trend in enhancing the fuel efficiency of marine diesel engines. The application of water-fuel emulsion (WFE) combustion enables the reduction of a low-temperature corrosion, and, as a result, provides deeper exhaust gas heat utilization in the exhaust gas boiler (EGB) to the much lower temperature of 90–110 °C during WFE instead of 150–170 °C when combusting conventional fuel oil. This leads to the increment of the heat extracted from exhaust gas that is converted to refrigeration capacity by exhaust heat recovery chiller for cooling engine turbocharger sucked air accordingly. We experimentally investigated the corrosion processes on the condensation surfaces of EGB during WFE combustion to approve their intensity suppression and the possibility of deeper exhaust gas heat utilization. The fuel efficiency of cooling intake air at the suction of engine turbocharger with WFE combustion by exhaust heat recovery chiller was estimated along the voyage line Mariupol–Amsterdam–Mariupol. The values of available refrigeration capacity of exhaust heat recovery chiller, engine turbocharger sacked air temperature drop, and corresponding reduction in specific fuel consumption of the main low-speed diesel engine at varying actual climatic conditions on the voyage line were evaluated.