Epstein Frame Measurement Based Determination

of Original Non-Degraded and Fully Degraded

Magnetic Characteristics of Material Submitted to
Laser Cutting
Madeleine Bali1 , Student Member, IEEE, Herbert De Gersem2 , Annette Muetze1 , Senior Member, IEEE
1 Graz University of Technology, Electric Drives and Machines Institute
Inffeldgasse 18/I, A-8010 Graz, Austria
2 Technische Universit
at Darmstadt, Institut fur Theorie Elektromagnetischer Felder
Schlossgartenstrae 8, D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany
madeleine.bali@tugraz.at, degersem@temf.tu-darmstadt.de, muetze@tugraz.at
AbstractThe degrading effect of laser cutting on steel sheet
material, and thus on the materials magnetic characteristics, is
much less understood than that of mechanical cutting. Furthermore, the estimated degrading inuence on magnetic properties
is still difcult to determine and not sufciently known. In
this paper, the magnetic characteristics of the degraded and
non-degraded zones are computed from data obtained by two
Epstein frame measurements using sample strips of different
widths. Subsequently, these new characteristics are inserted into
a nite-element model, which accounts for arbitrary geometries.
The simulation results for the inuence of laser cutting on
the magnetic characteristics of the stator lamination stacks are
veried by measurements.
Index TermsElectrical steel sheets, ferromagnetic material,
nite element method, laser cutting, magnetostatics, manufacturing, material degradation.

I. I NTRODUCTION
To date, the electromagnetic characteristics of electrical
steel sheets used in electrical machines are implemented in
nite element simulations by magnetization and loss curves
obtained from Epstein frame measurements [1] and/or provided by manufacturers. The literature generally agrees that
these data sets differ from those of the nished machine (e.g.
[2]), as the magnetic deterioration due to the manufacturing
steps is not taken into account. Commonly, these differences
are considered, for example, by correction or building factors
[3][5], which generally do not include the variabilities between different materials, machine designs (stator and rotor
cross sectional areas), and manufacturing techniques.
This paper focuses on modeling the degrading effect of laser
cutting, in particular solid state laser cutting, in contrast to
the majority of works that have focused on the degradation
effect due to mechanical cutting [6][9]. It reviews a method
to estimate the losses for different geometries and applies this
method to samples of solid state laser-cut stator lamination
stacks, thereby further investigating possible differences between the modeling of mechanical and laser cutting.

978-1-4673-7151-3/15/$31.00 2015 IEEE

Fig. 1. Arrangement of steel strips in the Epstein frame, based on [1].

II. P ERFORMED M EASUREMENTS

The BH- and specic loss curves of two samples with the
same length, y , and thickness, wz , but with different widths
(w1 = 30 mm and w2 = 7.5 mm) are determined by Epstein
frame measurements (Fig. 2). The Epstein frame measurements have been based on the standards IEC 60404-2 [1] and
IEC 60404-10 [10], and the setup has been presented in detail
in [6].
In the case of the wide samples (width of w1 ) 16 electrical
steel sheet strips, in the case of the small samples (width
of w2 ) 64 strips are placed into the frame (Fig. 2). Note that
the transversely-cut and longitudinally-cut samples are placed
in two opposite coils (Fig. 1) [1].
All samples of one material are taken from the same mother
coil (MC) since material deviations from MC to MC may be
larger than the inuence of the manufacturing process [11].

6096

Fig. 3. Identifying the non-degraded and degraded BH-curves with the BHcurves of small and wide samples [6].

known from mechanically-cut samples may be applicable

to laser-cut samples. For example, the determination of the
changed grain sizes is not suitable, as according to [15] laser
cutting does not change the grain size of the material. Furthermore, the laser technique and the laser settings inuence the
degree, and thus, the depth of deterioration.
In the presented modeling approach, a non-degraded area in
the middle of the sheet and a homogeneously degraded zone
with a deterioration depth of 2.1 mm from the cut edge is
assumed. Thus, a better comparison with the results presented
in [6], in which mechanically-cut samples are investigated,
is possible, when the same degradation depth is used. Note
that the proposed technique also allows to set other degradation depths, and the computed material characteristics result
accordingly.

A. Assumptions and simplications

B. Basic identication procedure

The identication procedure has been discussed at length
in [6] and is reviewed here briey for comprehensiveness.
The basic idea of this procedure is presented in (Fig. 3).
The measurement series (H1 , B1 ) and (H2 , B2 ) are obtained
independently from the wide and small samples in the
Epstein frame (see also Fig. 2). Of course, it is ensured that
these samples result from the same material and MC.
Subsequently, data points (H, Bnd ) and (H, Bdg ) are calculated from

 


Bnd
B1
1 1 1
=
.
(1)
1 2 2
Bdg
B2

The following assumptions and simplications have been

made:
The laser cutting process induces equal degradation proles on both sides of the sample.
The degradation zone is homogeneous and has a specied
depth, d (Fig. 2).
The deteriorated zones on the short sides of the Epstein
samples is neglected as d  y (Fig. 2).
The fractions of degraded material in samples 1 and 2 are
denoted as 1 (2d/w1 ) and 2 (8d/w2 ) respectively.
Only very few results have been published on the degradation depth of laser cutting, for example in [12]. This is,
among other reasons, also due to a lack of understanding of
the detailed deterioration of the material which is caused by
the laser cutting technique. In contrast to mechanically-cut
samples, laser cutting induces thermal stresses due to the fast
heating followed by a rapid cooling [13], [14]. Thus, not every
measurement method used to identify the degradation depth

The subscripts 1 and 2 label the measured data of the two

samples with different widths (see also Section II). Eq. (1)
presents the parallel connection of the ux paths through the
non-degraded (nd) and degraded (dg) zones. Note, the values
B1 , B2 , Bnd and Bdg all correspond to the same magnetic eld
strength H.
A few generalizations are implemented to improve the
applicability in practice:
1) Interpolation and sampling,
2) Rayleigh region,
3) Full-saturation region.
A more detailed explanation is reviewed from [6] in Appendix A.
The obtained curves (H, Bnd ) and (H, Bdg ) can easily be
integrated into a nite element calculation of, for example, a
machine consisting of a material with a fully degraded zone
at the cut edge and a non-degraded zone in the middle of the
sample.

Fig. 2. Correlation between measurements and identication procedure.

III. R EVIEW: I DENTIFICATION OF N ON -D EGRADED AND

F ULLY D EGRADED BH -C HARACTERISTICS

6097

IV. R ESULTS
In the following, the identication procedure is applied to
three different materials
M270-35A,
M400-50A,
M800-65A,
commonly used in electric machine design, at three different
frequencies
50 Hz
250 Hz
500 Hz.
Thus, an extensive verication of this method is possible.
The permeability of sample 1 is substantially better than that
of sample 2, because w1 > w2 . Thus, the relative degraded
volume (Vdegraded /Vtotal sample volume ) in sample 2 is larger than
in sample 1 (Fig. 2).
As already shown in [6], piecewise cubic splines in combination with a repairing procedure of the Rayleigh and full
saturation regions represent the measured curves accurately
(see Fig. 4). This, along with the basic identication procedure,
provides the results presented in Fig. 5. The sampling points
for the magnetic eld strength are taken from the measurements of the rst sample (see Appendix A).

As expected, the BH-curves are stacked such that for all

values H of the magnetic eld strength holds, Bnd (H) >
B1 (H) > B2 (H) > Bdg (H), in all regions of the characteristic (Fig. 5).
Note that the model may produce unusual (unphysical)
behavior in the knee point area of the identied non-degraded
BH-curve by producing an extrema (see Fig. 5). This may
occur when the difference of the magnetic induction or the
relative permeability of both measured samples is very large
at a respective magnetic eld strength H: In contrast to
mechanically-cut samples (see [16]), the relative permeability of the small laser-cut samples is more degraded at the
small magnetic eld strength area (see Fig. 6). Additionally, the relative permeability of laser-cut samples at small
magnetic eld strengths is, with decreasing sample width or
increasing deteriorated zone, degraded to a plateau (see e.g.
Fig. 6 and [16]). Hence, the difference of relative permeabilities of samples 1 and 2 is signicantly larger for laser-cut
samples. Therefore, such articial extrema may result if the
method is applied to laser-cut samples of signicantly different
widths.
M27035A_30_250Hz_mc
M27035A_75_250Hz_mc
M27035A_30_250Hz_lc
M27035A_75_250Hz_lc

7000

Relative permeability

6000
2
1.8
Magnetic flux density (T)

1.6
1.4
1.2

4000
3000
2000

1
1000

0.8
0.6

BH1 (measured)

0.4

BH1 (calculated)

0.2

BH2 (measured)

0
0

200

BH2 (calculated)
2000

4000

6000
8000
10000
Magnetic field strength (A/m)

12000

14000

600
800
Magnetic field strength in A/m

1000

1200

V. R EVIEW: I DENTIFICATION OF L OSS C URVES FOR

N ON -D EGRADED AND F ULLY D EGRADED M ATERIAL
A. Loss model

The loss model used in this identication procedure is

described by
ploss = |c1 | B + c2 B 2 ,
(2)

1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2

with ploss the loss density and c1 and c2 the parameters which
need to be identied by regression. The expression is quite
simple but approximates the loss density very accurately.

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0

400

Fig. 6. The difference in relative permeability due to the different used sample
sizes is larger for laser-cut (lc) than for mechanically-cut (mc) samples at small
magnetic eld strengths.

Fig. 4. Measured and identied BH-curves, M270-35A at 50 Hz.

Magnetic flux density (T)

5000

2000

4000

6000
8000
10000
Magnetic field strength (A/m)

first sample
second sample
nondegraded
degraded
12000
14000

Fig. 5. Identied BH-curves for the degraded and non-degraded material

zone, M270-35A at 50 Hz.

B. Basic identication procedure

The identication of the loss curves for the non-degraded
and degraded material requires several steps and depends on
the previously obtained BH-curves, Bnd (H), and Bdg (H).
With this procedure, including both the loss model and the
measurement data, the parameters for the loss model for

6098

the degraded and the non-degraded material zones can be

determined.

50
45

Loss density (W/kg)

40

sample 1: measurement
sample 1: approximation
sample 2: measurement
sample 2: approximation

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0

Fig. 7. Identifying the non-degraded and degraded loss curves from the loss
curves of small and wide samples [6].

7) Compare p1 and p2 with p1 and p2 .

Steps 1 to 4 are carried out in advance. Steps 5 to 6 are
implemented in a procedure which is given as an input to
an optimization routine minimizing the error in step 7.
VI. R ESULTS
The loss identication procedure is applied to the measurement results for wide and small samples of all investigated
material samples. The modeled curves approximate the measured ones sufciently well (as illustrated in Fig. 8).
The resulting loss densities for the same magnetic ux
density are ordered as pnd < p1 < p2 < pdg (Fig. 9). This
applies to all investigated samples.
VII. A PPLYING THE I DENTIFIED C URVES TO A
L ASER -C UT S TATOR G EOMETRY
A. Stator measurement setup
The laminations of the investigated stator stack are derived
from the same MC as the investigated Epstein samples and
have been cut by the same laser cutting method. This has been
done to avoid possible additional deviations due to different
production batches.

Magnetic flux density (T)

1.5

Fig. 8. Measured and identied loss curves for laser-cut samples, M400-50A
at 250 Hz supply frequency.
80
70
60
Loss density (W/kg)

The identication procedure is reviewed from [6]:

1) Choose a set of sampling points for the magnetic eld
strength Hsample .

)- and (H, Bdg

) curves.
2) Evaluate the (H, Bnd
3) Calculate the corresponding averaged magnetic ux densities, B1 and B2 , in both samples, using eq. (1).
4) Evaluate the measured loss curves for B1 and B2 , leading
to p1 and p2 .
5) Evaluate the loss model for a set of model parameters

and Bdg
.
and for the points Bnd
6) Calculate the corresponding averaged loss densities p1
and p2 in both samples, using:

  

pnd
p1
1 1 1
=
.
(3)
1 2 2
pdg
p2

0.5

sample 1
sample 2
nondegraded
degraded

50
40
30
20
10
0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8
1
1.2
Magnetic flux density (T)

1.4

1.6

1.8

Fig. 9. Measured and computed loss curves for laser-cut samples, M400-50A
at 250 Hz supply frequency.

As for the mechanically-cut stator samples in [6], a primary and secondary coil are wound around the stator yoke
(yoke height = 12 mm). Hence, the magnetic ux is only
considered in the yoke; and an alternating eld, similar to
the Epstein samples, can be assumed. Similar to the Epstein
frame measurements (see Section II), the form factor of the
secondary voltage is controlled to be in the range 1.111 1 %.
Additionally, the same power amplier and power analyzer as
for the Epstein frame measurements are used (see Section II).
The lamination stacks are demagnetized before any readings
are taken.
B. Simulation
The obtained BH-curves for the fully degraded and nondegraded zones of the Epstein samples are applied to the
stator geometry implemented in a nite element simulation
(FEMM [17] coupled with Matlab [18]), see Fig. 10. The same
degradation depth, d, is set at the cut edges as for the Epstein
samples (see Section III).
In contrast to the Epstein samples, the stator lamination
stacks have been pressed (around 4 MPa) and glued. This
inuence of pressing and gluing is added to the computed
values, so that the computed and measured loss data are
comparable. The increase of specic losses due to the pressing

6099

90

Power loss density (W/kg)

80

measured
computed excl. pressing
computed incl. pressing

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6
0.8
1
Magnetic flux density (T)

1.2

1.4

1.6

Fig. 11. Measured and computed loss curves of the investigated stator
lamination stack at 50 Hz, material M270-35A.

60

Power loss density (W/kg)

50

Fig. 10. Application of computed magnetic characteristics to arbitrary

geometries.

and gluing is in the range of experimentally determined values

that have been presented in the literature which consider the
pressing of steel sheets into the thickness direction and is based
on [19]. A more detailed explanation of this has been given
in [6].

measured
computed excl. pressing
computed incl. pressing

40
30
20
10
0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8
1
1.2
Magnetic flux density (T)

1.4

1.6

1.8

Fig. 12. Measured and computed loss curves of the investigated stator
lamination stack at 250 Hz, material M400-50A.

C. Results
Selected computed and measured results of the investigated
stator samples are presented in Figs. 11-13. In all cases, the
measured and computed specic losses of the investigated
stator lamination stacks are in good agreement, for different
materials as well as different frequencies. Thus, the proposed
identication procedure for laser-cut laminations can also
serve as a good tool in the design process of electrical
machines to obtain more accurate data of changed magnetic
characteristics of electric steel sheets due to cutting.

Power loss density (W/kg)

measured
computed excl. pressing
computed incl. pressing

6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0

VIII. S UMMARY
A method which considers the inuence of cutting that
had been proposed for mechanically-cut samples [6] has also
been applied to laser-cut samples. This method is veried
by measurements on several stator lamination stacks with
different materials and at different frequencies. The computed
specic losses for the stator lamination stacks correspond
with the measured ones. This method has been validated for
frequencies up to 500 Hz.

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8
1
1.2
Magnetic flux density (T)

1.4

1.6

1.8

Fig. 13. Measured and computed loss curves of the investigated stator
lamination stack at 50 Hz, material M800-65A.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. M. Braun of Dr.-Ing.
Ernst Braun GmbH and Mr. A. Peter of Kienle & Spiess
GmbH for making the measurement equipment and material
samples available.

6100

A PPENDIX A

R EFERENCES

Generalizations implemented in the basic identication procedure, reviewed from [6]:

1) Interpolation and sampling. For the identication procedure there is the need to obtain matching values for H1
and H2 . This is achieved by interpolating the sampling
points. As shown in [6], cubic splines provide the best results with regard to accuracy respecting all magnetization
curve characteristics. This is in contrast to other wellknown tting functions as e.g., the Brauer curve [20],
the Bertotti curve [21] or the Langevin curve [22]. The
sampling points for the magnetic eld strength H are
taken from the measurements of the rst sample.
2) Rayleigh region. The measurements for small elds may
lack accuracy. As a consequence, the Rayleigh effect is
only marginally represented in the measurement curves.
Under these circumstances, eq. (1) may lead to invalid
results, e.g., Bdg may become negative. Two remedies
were already shown in [6].
Note, even when the (H1 , B1 )-curves and (H2 , B2 )curves are cleaned to correctly represent the Rayleigh
region, this quality is not carried over by the identication
procedure represented by eq. (1) to the (H, Bnd )- and
(H, Bdg )-curves. There, the clean-up procedure should
be repeated. In fact, it makes more sense to align the
Rayleigh region for the (H, Bnd )- and (H, Bdg )-curves,
because these are assumed to correspond to individual
materials, whereas the (H, B1 )- and (H, B2 )-curves are
particularly averaged material properties.
3) Full-saturation region. It is necessary to clearly dene the
extrapolation of the BH-characteristics for large elds.
Extrapolating from the last measurement point with
a differential permeability, 0 , is based on physical
understanding, but may introduce a discontinuity in
the differential permeability which may hamper the
convergence of the Newton method applied later on.
As long as the (H1 , B1 )-curve lies above the (H2 , B2 )curve, this procedure guarantees consistent results for
(H, Bnd ) and (H, Bdg ).
Another technique extends the BH-curves according
to the slope determined by the two last measurement
points. This approach may be inappropriate when the
small variations of the magnetic ux density are not
sufciently resolved by the measurements. Moreover,
it should be veried that the nal slope for (H1 , B1 )
is larger or equal to that of (H2 , B2 ).

[1] IEC 60404-4, Magnetic materials - Part 2: Methods of measurements of

the magnetic properties of electrical steel sheet and strip by means of an
Epstein frame, 2008.
[2] W.M. Arshad, T. Ryckebusch, F. Magnussen, H. Lendenmann, B. Eriksson, J. Soulard, B. Malmros, Incorporating lamination processing and
component manufacturing in electrical machine design tools, Industry
Applications Conference, 42nd Meeting, pp. 94-102, 2007.
[3] G. Mueller, K. Vogt, B. Ponick, Verluste, in Berechnung elektrischer
Maschinen, Weinheim, Germany, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co.
KGaA, 2008.
[4] M. Oka, M. Kawano, K. Shimada, K. Takayuki, M. Enokizono, Evaluation of the magnetic properties of the rotating machines for the building
factor clarication, Przeglad Elektrotechniczny, 87(9b), 43-46, 2011.
[5] T. Nakata, Numerical analysis of ux and loss distributions in electrical
machinery, Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on, 20(5), pp. 1750-1755,
1984.
[6] M. Bali, H. De Gersem, A. Muetze, Epstein Frame Measurement Based
Determination of Original Non-Degraded and Fully Degraded Magnetic
Properties of Material Submitted to Mechanical Cutting, Electric Machines Drives Conference (IEMDC), 2015 IEEE International, pp. 11841189, 2015.
[7] M. Bali, H. De Gersem, A. Muetze, Finite-Element Modeling of
Magnetic Material Degradation Due to Punching, IEEE Transactions
on Magnetics, 50(2), pp. 745-748, 2014.
[8] Z. Gmyrek, A. Cavagnino, Analytical method for determining the
damaged area width in magnetic materials due to punching process,
IECON 2011 - 37th Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial Electronics
Society, pp. 1764-1769, 2011.
[9] Z. Gmyrek, A. Cavagnino, L. Ferraris Estimation of the magnetic
properties of the damaged area resulting from the punching process: Experimental research and FEM modeling, IEEE Transactions on Industry
Applications, 49(5), 2069-2077, 2013.
[10] IEC 60404-4, Magnetic materials - Methods of measurements of magnetic properties of magnetic steel sheet and strip at medium frequencies,
1997.
[11] A.J. Clerc, A. Muetze, Measurement of stator core magnetic degradation during the manufacturing process, IEEE Transactions on Industry
Applications 48(4), 2012.
[12] R. Siebert, J. Schneider, E. Beyer Laser cutting and mechanical cutting
of electrical steels and its effect on the magnetic properties, IEEE
Transactions on Magnetics 50(4), pp.1-4, 2014.
[13] W. Wilczynski, A. Skopec, B. Szubzda, S. Talik, W. Lipiec Aspects of
the punching and laser cutting effect on the power losses and magnetic
ux density distribution in electrical steel, Stahleisen, 499-503, 2004.
[14] P. Baudouin, Effect of laser and mechanical cutting on the magnetic
properties of non-oriented electrical steels, Ph.D. thesis, Universiteit
Gent, 2002.
[15] E. A. Abdul-Zade, A. Kh. Gasanov, R.M. Talybov Inuence of laser
cutting on the electromagnetic characteristics of electrical steels, Elektrotekhnika, 59(6), 59-60, 1988.
[16] M. Bali, A. Muetze, Inuences of CO2 and FKL-laser cutting as well
as mechanical cutting on the magnetic properties of electric steel sheets
determined by Epstein frame and stator lamination stack measurements,
Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), 2014 IEEE, pp.
1443-1450, 2014.
[17] Finite Element Method Magnetics (FEMM), [Online]. Available:
http://www.femm.info , accessed on 2015-03-19.
[18] Matlab, Available: http://mathworks.com/products/matlab/ , accessed
on 2015-03-19.
[19] D. Miyagi, Y. Aoki, M. Nakano, N. Takahasi, Effect of compressive
stress in thickness direction on iron losses of nonoriented electrical steel
sheet, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, 46(6), pp. 2040-2043, 2010.
[20] J.R. Brauer, Simple equations for the magnetization and reluctivity
curves of steel, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, 11(1), p. 81, 1975.
[21] P. Nakmahachalasint, K. D. T. Ngo, L. Vu-Quoc, A static hysteresis
model for power ferrites, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 17(4),
p. 453-460, 2002.
[22] R.M. Bozorth, Ferromagnetism Wiley [u. a.], Hoboken, NJ [u. a.],
2003.

6101