11/11/13

Drive Design in Electric Vehicles | EEP

Drive Design in Electric Vehicles

Drive Design in Electric Vehicles (on photo by cnet.com.au: Renault Fluence Z.E. presented
at the 2011 Melbourne Motor Show)

Introduction
Good Evening all, in this session Im going to present some of the issues in drive design in the field
of Electric Vehicle.
Ive organized the whole series into modules so that each module can be covered with:
Drive Design issues
Comparison of different drives for EV applications
Electrical Machine design Viewpoints
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Science of Machines
Design of Induction Machines
Design of BLDC Machines
Design of SRM Machines
Optimization
Recent trends in design
Lets start the session with a comprehensive introduction about drives used in Industry as well EV
applications

EV drives versus Industrial drives

GM's new electric drive module in the 2014 Spark EV features a

GM-designed-and-manufactured 120-kW permanent magnet traction
motor (visible on the left side) and smart use of key carryover
components from Volt and the two-mode hybrid transmission.

In EVs, only traction motor delivers torque to the driven wheels. Thus the vehicle performance is
completely determined by the torque speed or powerspeed characteristic of the traction motor.
A vehicle, in order to meet its operational requirement, such as the initial acceleration and grade
ability with minimum power mentioned above, operation entirely in constant power is needed.
Operation entirely in constant power is, however, not possible for any practical vehicle.
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It can be observed that the EV motor drive is expected to be capable of offering a high torque at low
speed for starting and acceleration, and a high power at high speed for cruising.
At the same time, the speed range under constant power is desired as wide as possible. Ideally,
eliminating the constant torque region would provide the minimum power rating of the motor, but
this is not physically realizable.

Desired output characteristicsc of electric motor

drives in EVs

Under the normal mode of operation, a typical electric motor drive designed for industrial
applications can provide constant rated torque up to its base or rated speed. At this speed, the motor
reaches its rated power limit. The operation beyond the base speed up to the maximum speed is
limited to this constant power region.
The range of the constant power operation depends primarily on the particular motor type and its
control strategy.
The maximum available torque in the natural mode of operation decreases inversely with the square
of the speed. Although the machine torque in the natural mode decreases inversely with the square
of the speed, for some extremely high speed motors the natural mode of operation is an appreciable
part of its total power-speed profile.
Inclusion of this natural mode for such motor drives may result in a reduction of the total power
requirement.
Typical performances of an electric motor
drives in industrial application

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Drive Design in Electric Vehicles | EEP

Conclusions
Conclusions drawn from the above comparisons
are :

3.
4.

5.

6.

1. The power requirement (rated power) for

acceleration performance (acceleration time and
acceleration distance) decreases as constant power
region ratio increases.
2. Conversely, the torque requirement (rated torque)
for acceleration increases as constant power region ratio increases. This results in a larger motor
size and volume.
Passing performance (passing time and passing distance) suffers considerably as the constant
power region ratio increases.
A motors maximum speed has a pronounced effect on the required torque of the motor. Low
speed motors with the extended constant power speed range have a much higher rated shaft
torque. Consequently, they need more iron and copper to support this higher flux and torque.
As motor power decreases (due to extending the range of constant power operation), the
required torque is increasing. Therefore, although the converter power requirement (hence the
converter cost) will decrease when increasing the constant power range, the motor size, volume,
and cost will increase.
Increasing the maximum speed of the motor can reduce the motor size by allowing gearing to
increase shaft torque. However, the motor maximum speed cannot be increased indefinitely
without incurring more cost and transmission requirements.

Requirements of EVs on Electric Motor Drives

High instant power and high power density.
High torque at low speeds for starting and climbing, as well as high power at high speed for
cruising.
Very wide speed range including constant-torque and constant-power regions.
Fast torque response.
High efficiency over wide speed and torque ranges.
High efficiency for regenerative braking.
High reliability and robustness for various vehicle-operating conditions.
Downsizing, weight reduction, and lower moment of inertia.
Fault tolerance
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Reasonable cost
Suppression of electromagnetic interface (EMI) of motor controllers

Major Considerations in design

1.
2.
3.
4.

The Type of frame structure

Ventilation
The bearing and shaft
The Magnetic core dimensions & the winding

Design details required:

1.
2.
3.
4.

The main dimensions of the stator.

Details of stator windings.
Design details of rotor and its windings
Performance characteristics.

Specifications:
Number of phases
Frequency
Rated output in kW
Type of duty
Voltage connections
Temperature rise
Speed
Pullout torque
Starting torque
Starting current
Power factor
Efficiency/losses
Class of insulation

Motor drive mechanism of coming BMW i8 in 2015 (photo by topspeed.com)

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References:

1. Electrical Machine Design A.K.Sawhney

2. Selection of Electric Motor Drives for Electric Vehicles X. D. Xue, K. W. E. Cheng and N.
C. Cheung
3. Inputs from Google and Wikipedia

Vishy - V.Vishnuteja completed his Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from Chaitanya Engineering
College ,Visakhapatnam in 2012 and is presently pursuing his Masters in Power Electronics & Drives
at SRM University,Chennai. At present,he's working as intern @ Non-Ferrous Materials Technology
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Development Center (NFTDC),an autonomous R&D center in Hyderabad,India in the

area of Motor Design for Electric Vehicle. His areas of interest are Electrical Machine
design,Electric Drives, Alternate Energy Sources and Power Electronics.He' working
with computer aided design & simulation softwares like Motor Solve, SPEED and
MATLAB- Simulink. He's a Associate Student Member of IEEE and one of the active
authors of Mathworks Fileexchange.
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