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Axial Flux Segmental Rotor Flux-Switching Synchronous Motor

Conference Paper · September 2015

DOI: 10.1109/ECCE.2015.7309963

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Md Ashfanoor Kabir Adeeb Ahmed

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University
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 Axial Flux Segmental Rotor Flux-Switching
Synchronous Motor
Md Ashfanoor Kabir*, Adeeb Ahmed and Iqbal Husain
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)
North Carolina State University (NCSU)
Raleigh, NC, USA
*
mkabir@ncsu.edu

Abstract— A novel three-phase, concentrated winding, axial its higher torque and power densities, higher torque–to-weight
flux, segmental rotor, flux-switching synchronous motor is ratio and lower torque ripple. Because of its compactness and
presented. The proposed topology has rotor segments made of only high torque and power densities with low torque ripple the
iron laminations and operates with flux-switching principle. proposed AFFSM is being considered for an in-wheel electric
Compared to existing axial flux permanent magnet (AFPM) vehicle application in this paper. Details on operating principle,
topologies, the proposed machine contains reduced amount of machine structure and design of the proposed topology
permanent magnets located only at its stator. This approach compared with a targeted benchmark will be presented in this
should make the assembly easier and reduce the cost compared to paper.
conventional AFPM. Moreover, the proposed topologies have
higher torque density and torque-to-weight ratio and lower torque II. PROPOSED AFFSM TOPOLOGY
ripple compared to reported axial flux SRMs (AFSRMs). Detailed
design and operation of the proposed machine is presented; the Two concentrated, non-overlapping winding topologies
performance of the machine is evaluated for an in-wheel traction have been proposed for the AFFSM. The detailed structure of
application. the proposed toroidal wound and tooth wound AFFSM are
presented in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, respectively. For the toroidal
Keywords—Axial flux, synchronous motor, flux-switching, wound design two consecutive stator slots have the same phase
concentrated winding, 3D FEA analysis windings with the same orientation. PMs at stator teeth tips will
have opposite polarities in the axial direction as presented in Fig.
I. INTRODUCTION 1. Rotor segments on both sides of the stator are positioned at
Axial flux permanent magnet (AFPM) motors are gaining the same angular position to ensure simultaneous stator-rotor
more attention because of their high torque and power densities, overlapping. The tooth wound AFFSM is presented in Fig. 2
higher torque-to-weight ratio with less core materials, smaller with the armature wound stator poles having windings from the
size, planner and easily adjustable air-gap, lower noise and same phase in same orientation.
vibration [1]. However, most of the existing topologies use
permanent magnet rotor discs that result in complexity of
assembling the rotating components [2]. The lack of proper
fabrication technology is slowing down the development of the
AFPM technology compared to its radial flux counterparts [3].
In order to simplify the structure and reduce manufacturing cost,
axial flux switched reluctance motor (AFSRM) topologies [4]-
[7] have also been investigated in literatures. Although these
AFSRM topologies are of reduced cost with simplified machine
structures compared to AFPM, their torque and power densities
are lower and they suffer from higher torque ripple and acoustic
noise compared to their PM counterparts [7], [8].
In this research, a new topology of concentrated winding
axial flux machine is proposed that operates using the flux-
switching principle. The rotor structure is made of iron
lamination segments embedded in non-magnetic support; the
stator has PMs placed only in its alternate stator tips. Unlike the
existing dual-stator axial field flux-switching permanent magnet
machine [9] having PM on each stator pole, the proposed dual- Fig. 1 Detailed 3D structure of the proposed toroidal wound AFFSM
rotor topologies have reduced PM counts for the same pole
number. Compared to existing AFPM topologies [1]-[3] the Unlike the toroidal wound design, PMs at stator teeth tips are
proposed axial flux flux-switching machine (AFFSM) is having the same polarities in the axial direction. Magnetic flux
simplified, easy to assemble and the amount of PM is reduced will flow through one stator tooth to the next one via the rotor
with its location secured in the stationary part. Moreover, segments and will not flow through the stator back iron for this
advantages of the proposed topology over AFSRMs [5]-[8] are
tooth wound design. Therefore, segmental stator poles can be
designed with improved fill factor and slot design for this tooth
wound topology. Moreover, embedding the stator segments in
non-magnetic support will also reduce the leakage flux and
improve the percentage of active materials used for torque
production. Design optimization and performance analysis of
the tooth wound AFFSM will be presented in this paper.

(b)

(c)

Fig. 2: Detailed 3D structure of the proposed tooth wound AFFSM

III. PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION

Flux-switching mechanism for the proposed axial flux
machine is developed using the motion of rotor segments. The
principle of operation of the proposed axial flux segmental rotor
flux-switching synchronous machine will be explained with the
help of its rectilinear representation in Fig. 3. The rectilinear
block consists of a stator core with eight stator teeth (four on
each side) and eight stator slots. A 2D dual rotor representation
of the tooth wound AFFSM is presented in Fig. 4 to illustrate its
winding configuration and PM arrangements where PMs
marked by the same colors are assumed to have the same
magnetic orientation. In [10], flux-switching operation with
segmental rotors is explained for radial flux machine with DC
field windings, which are replaced with PMs in the proposed
segmental rotor axial flux topology. Permanent magnets are
placed alternately interleaving the stator phase wound teeth and
the polarity of the magnet along the radial direction is
maintained the same as shown in Fig. 3. The proposed topology
works in the flux-switching principle as the armature wound
stator-tooth-flux switches polarity with the motion of the rotor
segments.
(d)
Fig. 3 Magnetic field distribution with rectilinear representation with only
PM excitation (a) initial aligned position, (b) unaligned position at one-
fourth cycle, (c) aligned position at half cycle, (d) unaligned position at
three-fourth cycle
The aligned positions occurs when rotor segments
magnetically connects two adjacent stator poles and create a
closed loop flux lines as shown in Fig. 3(a) and Fig. 3(c). Flux
lines in the armature wound teeth have opposite polarities for
these two aligned positions. During the unaligned positions as in
Fig. 3(b), there is equal overlapping for the trailing and leading
edge of two consecutive rotor segments with armature wound
stator teeth of phase A; the magnetic field lines from two
neighboring PM teeth are opposing each other in the armature
wound teeth in the unaligned position. The next unaligned
position occurs when a rotor segment is centered with the
armature wound teeth as in Fig. 3(d). The armature flux switches
its polarity during these unaligned positions. Typical magnetic
flux linkage waveform for phase coil A as a function of rotor
position is shown in Fig. 5. From Fig. 3(a) to Fig. 3(d), both the
magnitude and polarity of the armature wound teeth varies with
the rotor position. This variation results in bipolar AC magnetic
field in armature wound teeth achieving flux-switching.

(a)
 same design constraints. Model for the benchmark AFSSRM is
also developed in 3D FEA for its performance comparison with
the proposed topology and is presented in Fig. 6. Results from
3D FEA analysis in ANSYS Maxwell of the proposed topology
under the design constraint given in Table 1 will be presented in
the next section.

Fig. 4 2D representation of the tooth-wound AFFSM

Fig. 6: The benchmark 12/16 AFSSRM

V. RESULTS FROM 3D FEA ANALYSIS

Fig. 5 Typical Phase A flux linkages with rotor positions
IV. DESIGN MACHINE SPECIFICATIONS
The proposed machine is designed for an in-wheel electric
vehicle application with high specific torque [7]. The design
specification for the benchmark axial flux segmental switched
reluctance machine (AFSSRM) is presented in Table 1.
Table 1: Design Machine Specifications
A. No load Characteristics
The design considered for performance analysis is a dual-
rotor, tooth wound concentrated winding AFFSM having 12
stator poles and 16 rotor segments on each side. The model
developed in 3D FEA has been presented in Fig. 2. At first the
machine is rotated at no-load without phase excitation and flux
linkages of all three phases are obtained. Flux linkages
waveforms for the tooth wound AFFSM topology is presented
in Fig. 7.
0.2
φa

Parameter Values φb
0.1
Flux Linkage (Wb)

φc
Stator outer diameter, D o 200 mm
0
Stator inner diameter, D i 116 mm
Shaft diameter, D sh 40 mm
-0.1
Air-gap length, l g 0.4 mm
Total axial length, L 95 mm -0.2
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Electrical Position (Degree)
Number of phases, N phase 3
Current density, J 4.5 A/mm2 Fig. 7: Stator flux linkages of 12/16 AFFSM

DC-link voltage, V DC 120 V Fourier analysis is performed on three-phase flux linkage

Rated torque, T avg 24 Nm profiles obtained from machine no-load simulation. Results
from frequency domain analysis are presented in Fig. 8 which
Rated speed, ω 500 rpm
show the fundamental wave component with very small higher
Rated power, P 1.5 kW order harmonics. However, these small harmonic components
Slot fill factor, FF 0.42 plays a critical role in distorting the back-EMF profiles. Back-
EMF waveforms of the machine at 500 rpm are presented in
The research objective is to improve the torque and power Fig. 9 and their frequency domain representations are presented
densities with the proposed flux-switching topology under the in Fig. 10. Moreover, the positive and negative half-cycles of
phase back-EMFs are not symmetric which agrees with its maintained at the windings. Result from the iterative
radial flux counterpart [10]. This asymmetric back-EMF optimization process is presented in Fig. 9. The optimum value
profiles can be explained with two different unaligned positions of L MAG is found to be 7.5 mm for the 12/16 AFFSM. Since the
in Fig. 3(b) and Fig. 3(d). Compared to Fig. 3(b), flux density stator back iron does not carry flux in the tooth winding
in stator pole is considerably lower for Fig. 3(d) which will topology, this thickness can be reduced to achieve a larger
cause a more flat back-EMF profile with linear flux-linkage window for winding placement. This enables achieving higher
variation. However, back-EMF profile associated with Fig. 3(b) ampere turn with same current density and plays significant role
will have sharper trend because of its curved flux linkage in the motor performance. Optimization of slot area to improve
variation [10]. machine ampere-turns for higher specific torque is also
performed during the design iteration.
4
25
Percentage Magnitude

Average torque (Nm)

3 20

2 15

10
1

5
0
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 0
Order
0.5 1.5 2.5 3.5 4.5 5.5 6.5 7.5 8.5 9.5
Fig. 8: No-load flux linkage in frequency domain. Harmonic
components are scaled by fundamental and shown in percentage. Thickness of PM (mm)
Fig. 11: PM thickness optimization at stator pole tip
200
Ea C. Static Torque Characteristics
150
Eb
Static torque profiles of the 12/16 tooth wound AFFSM for
100 Ec
different armature excitations up to the rated phase current are
Back EMF (V)

50
obtained by connecting one phase in series with parallel
0 connection of other two phases. This arrangement can simulate
-50 an instance of the balanced three-phase sinusoidal excitation
-100
and the results are presented in Fig. 10. The DC torque profiles
have similar trend with that of the radial flux-switching
-150
synchronous machine using segmental rotors [10] which
-200
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
validates the proposed axial flux flux-switching concept. The
Electrical Position (Degree) rated current is selected as to limit the conductor current density
to 4.5 A/mm2 and thereby not exceeding the thermal limit.
Fig. 9: Machine back-EMF profiles at 500 rpm
40
T 4.1 A T 8.2 A
7 30
6 T 12.3 A T 16.4 A
20
Percentage Magnitude

5
Torque (Nm)

10 T 20.5 A
4

3
0
0 60 120 180 240 300 360
2 -10
1 -20
0
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 -30
Order
Fig. 10 : Harmonic contribution in back EMF. Harmonic components are -40
scaled by fundamental and shown in percentage. Electrical degree
Fig. 12: Static torque waveforms at different armature excitation levels
B. Optimization of PM Thickness
Depending on the BH characteristics of the core material, D. Dynamic Simulation Results
air gap length and geometrical structure, the thickness of the Performance of the AFFSM and the benchmark AFSSRM
pole tip magnet, L MAG needs to be optimized. The optimization are evaluated under the design constraints presented in Table 1.
was made based on mean torque performance with rated current Both of these machine are designed and simulated in Maxwell
3D to compare their performances under the same simulation
environment. Dynamic simulation have been performed to
evaluate their performance at 500 rpm. The proposed AFFSM
topology is excited with three-phase sinusoidal excitation with
rated current only at the q-axis under dq-vector control, and the
benchmark AFSSRM is simulated with perfect current control
with each phase contributing for half of an electrical cycle. The
dynamic torque profile for the designed AFFSM is presented in
Fig. 13. Results are presented in Table 2 for the same current
density which show that the proposed topology can provide
almost two times higher torque compared to AFSSRM under
the same design constraints. Proposed AFFSM has a simplified
and low cost structure compared to the AFPMs with reduced
amount of PMs only at its stator and can provide much higher
torque density and torque to weight ratio than AFSSRM with
three-phase standard VSIs. Performance comparison of the
designed AFFSM with an axial flux rotor PM machine will be
presented in the next subsection.
45
40
35
30
Torque (Nm)
placed in rotor making the segmented rotor design unnecessary.
Thus, the segmented rotor segments were replaced by
permanent magnets maintaining same magnet mass for both
AFFSM and AFPM. Difference in flux path necessitates using
different number of stator rotor pole configuration and a 12-10
configuration was chosen (10 rotor poles). This essentially
resulted in a motor to behave as a 5 pole pair machine. The non-
magnetic support disk was replaced by a magnetic lamination
disk to support the flux path in the rotor. Though both these
structures have similar outer dimension, replacing the non-
magnetic support disk with magnetic steel puts the AFPM at an
advantageous position due to larger active volume. Dynamic
torque plot for AFPM is shown in Fig. 14. It is evident that the
machine performs better compared to AFFSM at rated current
but it should be noted that AFFSM can be rated for a high speed
rating due to absence of PM in rotor. Considering larger
operating speed window, AFFSM with similar dimension can
provide similar output power with a simple rotor construction.
Mean torque plot for different current magnitude presented in
Fig. 15 shows comparable performance for both machines at
100% lower current levels but AFPM outperforms AFFSM at higher
90% current magnitudes.
80%
70% 45
60%

25 50% 40
40% 100%
20 35
30% 90%
15 20% 30 80%
10% 70%
Torque (Nm)

10 25 60%
5 50%
20
40%
0 30%
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 15
Electrical Posiiton (Degree) 20%
10 10%
Fig. 13: EM Torque profile for the design AFFSM
5
Table 2: Performance comparison with benchmark
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
Parameter AFFSM AFSSRM AFPM Electrical Posiiton (Degree)

RMS Phase current,

14.5 14 14.5 Fig. 14: EM Torque profile for the AFPM
I (A)
Current density, J
4.5
(A/mm2) 50

Volume, V (L) 2.98

40
Weight, W (kg) 16 14 16.5
Mean Torque (Nm)

PM weight (% of 30
2.01 0 2.01
W)
AFFSM
Speed, ω (rpm) 500 20
AFPM
Average Torque,
34.2 17.9 41.9 10
T AVG (Nm)
Torque density,
11.47 6 14.06 0
0 5 10 15
T DEN (Nm/L)
RMS Current (A)
Torque-weight
2.13 1.28 2.53 Fig. 15: Average torque for different current ratings
ratio, T/W (Nm/kg)
E. Performance Comparison with AFPM: VI. CONCLUSION
For a fare comparison, a conventional axial flux PM motor with New topology of dual rotor, concentrated winding, axial
magnets placed on the rotor was analyzed with identical outer flux machine is presented that operates using the flux-switching
dimension. Same stator core design as used in the AFFSM was principle. Compared to conventional AFPMs, the proposed
used with the magnet volume replaced lamination stack. In the topology has PM placed only in its stator, and the rotor is made
AFPM design, alternating magnetic flux is created by magnets of only iron lamination segments which is easier to fabricate.
Detailed design and operation of the proposed machine is
explained and its performance is evaluated targeting an in-
wheel electric vehicle application and compared with a
benchmark AFSSRM. Results show that the proposed AFFSM
topology can attain much higher torque density and torque-to-
weight ratio compared to the benchmark machine under the
same design constraints.

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