IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 51, NO.

11, NOVEMBER 2015 8109804

Design and Analysis of a Novel Brushless

Wound Rotor Synchronous Machine
Qasim Ali1 , Thomas A. Lipo2 , Life Fellow, IEEE, and Byung-Il Kwon1
1 Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, Hanyang University, Ansan 426-791, Korea
2 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306 USA

This paper presents a new concept for brushless excitation of a wound rotor synchronous machine (WRSM) based on the
generation and utilization of a subharmonic component of the stator magnetomotive force (MMF). In this method, a dual inverter
topology for the stator winding is proposed. The idea is to generate and utilize an additional subharmonic stator MMF component
along with the fundamental component. The rotor carries two different windings: 1) excitation winding and 2) field winding. The
subharmonic component induces voltage in the excitation winding and feeds the field winding through a rotating rectifier on the rotor.
A 2-D finite-element analysis was performed to analyze and verify the proposed brushless WRSM.
Index Terms— Brushless excitation, finite-element analysis (FEA), synchronous machine (SM).

I. I NTRODUCTION
E LECTRIC machines play an important role in the modern
world of technology. Scientific research is being carried
out in this field for more than a century. Recently, the
permanent magnet machines are under the spot light because
of their high-accuracy fixed-speed drives. But the high price
due to the permanent magnet material is a key consideration
while making these kind of machines. In contrast, wound rotor
synchronous machines (WRSMs) are low price, permanent
magnet-free machines, and they can be used for a wide range
of speeds [1].
In the WRSMs, field winding is used which is supplied with
a direct current (dc) that generates the rotor flux. A dc current
can be applied to the rotor winding either using the brush and
slip-ring structure or brushless excitation method. The brushes
and slip rings have losses and maintenance issues, so they are
used for small SMs.
To overcome this issue, different methods have been used.
Hybrid excitation SMs were brought forward to combine the
advantages of both permanent magnet synchronous machine
(PMSM) and WRSM [2], [3]. The comparison study between
hybrid excitation topologies is discussed in [4]. However, a
rise in the price of rare-earth magnet caused by its scarcity is
a key consideration while developing such kind of machines.
A brushless dc-excited flux-switching machine is studied
in [5] with two set of windings in the stator. Torque producing
factors are analyzed to investigate about the true nature of
machine as compared with dc machines, SMs, and switched
reluctance machines.
For brushless excitation, conventionally, additional
(auxiliary) stator windings were used to excite the rotor field
winding. Additional excitation winding on stator and a hybrid
rotor to develop a brushless machine is studied in [6]. This
method faces issues, since both the stator windings are located
in the same stator core and require a large stator volume
for making place for both the windings. Based upon the
utilization of higher harmonics of the stator magnetomotive
Manuscript received March 20, 2015; revised May 11, 2015, May 18, 2015,
and May 26, 2015; accepted May 26, 2015. Date of publication June 2, 2015;
date of current version October 22, 2015. Corresponding author: B.-I. Kwon
(e-mail: bikwon@hanyang.ac.kr).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2015.2440433
0018-9464 © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
force (MMF), some work was investigated in [7] and [8].
In [7], a fractional slot concentrated winding is used to
develop 5th and 13th harmonic for an 18-teeth/10-pole
machine. The 5th harmonic is used as a main working
harmonic, while the 13th harmonic is used to excite the rotor
field winding, and hence achieving the brushless operation.
In [8], the brushless harmonic excitation principle is realized
by injecting the third-harmonic current component, a high-
frequency single-phase current component, or a dc component
into the three-phase stator open windings, to generate a time
pulsating magnetic field which can induce back electromotive
force (EMF) in the specially designed rotor harmonic coils.
The induced back EMF is rectified and supplies dc current to
the rotor field winding.
This paper presents a new method for the brushless oper-
ation of a WRSM based upon the generation of an addi-
tional subharmonic stator MMF component, rather than a
higher harmonic component. This subharmonic component
is utilized for the excitation of rotor windings without the
need of brushes and slip rings. A 2-D finite-element analy-
sis (FEA) is carried out to analyze and verify the proposed
brushless WRSM.
II. P ROPOSED M ACHINE T OPOLOGY
A. Topology
The topology for the proposed brushless WRSM investi-
gated in this paper is shown in Fig. 1. Stator winding is
divided in two portions inside the stator periphery. Inverter 1
supplies the three-phase current to the winding in one portion
of the machine, while the Inverter 2 supplies the three-phase
current to the winding in other portion of the machine. This
dual inverter topology is implied to control currents in the
two separate portions of the stator winding. Difference in
magnitude of currents in the two portions of stator winding
is responsible for the generation of additional subharmonic
component of stator MMF.
Two separate windings are placed in the rotor: 1) excita-
tion winding and 2) field winding. The excitation winding
is responsible for the induction of voltage required for the
excitation of the rotor. The other winding is the field winding.
The induced voltage in the excitation winding is rectified and
is supplied to the field winding. The diode bridge rectifier
circuit is placed on the rotor between the two rotor windings.
8109804
Fig. 1. Proposed brushless WRSM with dual inverter topology.
B. Operation Principle
Brushless operation for WRSM by the method of utilizing
higher harmonics of the stator MMF is discussed in [7] and [8].
For the proposed machine, instead of using higher harmonics,
a subharmonic is used to induce voltage in the excitation
winding of rotor. The main component of the stator MMF is
required for the torque production.
Both the subharmonic component and the main component
of the stator MMF are generated by the three-phase double
layer distributed windings without using any additional exci-
tation winding in the stator, which helps to reduce the machine
volume losses due to an additional winding and the overall cost
of the machine.
For the proposed topology, the generation of two substantial
components of stator MMF from a single-stator winding lies
in the fact that the stator winding is divided in two separate
portions inside the stator periphery. Each portion connects to
a separate current source inverter, as shown in Fig. 1. The
current amplitude from the two inverters is different, while
the phase and frequency of both the inverters are kept equal.
The currents in the two portions of the winding are given by
⎧ ⎫
⎪ i a1 = I1 sinωe t ⎪
⎪
⎪ 2π ⎪ ⎪
⎨ ⎬
i b1 = I1 sin ωe t −
 3  (1)
⎪
⎪ 2π ⎪ ⎪
⎪
⎩i c1 = I1 sin ωe t + ⎪
⎭ machine. The layout is shown in Fig. 2.
3
⎧ ⎫
⎪ i a2 = m ∗ I 1 sinωe t ⎪
⎪
⎪ 2π ⎪⎪
⎨ ⎬
i b2 = m ∗ I1 sin ωe t −
 3 ⎪ (2)
⎪
⎪ ⎪
⎪
⎩i c2 = m ∗ I 1 sin ωe t + 2π ⎪
⎭ winding is 2-pole winding, intended to induce the subharmonic
3 component and feed the rotor field winding. The field winding
where I1 is the fundamental wave current amplitude, ωe is
the electrical angular frequency, t is time, and m is the ratio
between the magnitude of two inverter currents
i a2
m= . (3)
i a1
If the currents from the two inverters have the equal amplitude,
i.e., m = 1, then only the fundamental component of the
stator MMF will be generated and no subharmonic component
will be observed. On the other hand, if the currents from the
inverters have unequal amplitude, i.e., m = 1, the subharmonic
component (with half the frequency of the fundamental com-
ponent) and the fundamental component are generated.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 51, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2015
Fig. 2. Machine layout with stator and rotor winding configuration.
The subharmonic component rotates with a different speed
as compared with the synchronous speed. Therefore, to utilize
the additional subharmonic produced, an extra winding in
the rotor is accommodated which has the same number of
poles as that of poles generated by subharmonic component.
This winding is called the excitation winding, and has the
responsibility to induce the voltage due to the subharmonic
component. The induced voltage is rectified and fed to the
rotor field winding by the rotating rectifier adjusted inside the
rotor periphery. Field winding on the rotor is used to link
with the main fundamental component of the stator MMF,
so it has number of poles equal to the poles generated by the
fundamental stator MMF component. In this way, the brushless
excitation of the proposed WRSM is achieved. The proposed
topology is equally feasible for both motor and generator case.
Due to the generation of subharmonics, there will be more
losses and higher torque ripple in the machine as compared
with the conventional WRSM. But in the case of higher
harmonics excitation, discussed in [6], there will be much
more losses due to the higher frequency of harmonics used.
III. D ESIGN AND A NALYSIS OF P ROPOSED M ACHINE
A. Configuration
A 2-D model for the machine was developed based upon
the proposed WRSM, with 24 stator slots and basic 4-pole
Stator has double layer distributed winding. The left portion
has the currents described in (1) and the right portion has the
currents described in (2). The rotor has two separate windings:
1) excitation winding and 2) field winding. The excitation
is the 4-pole winding used to link the 4-pole stator field with
rotor field.
B. Analysis
Winding distribution for the proposed machine is shown in
Fig. 3 along with the stator MMF. It is plotted for the case,
where currents in A2, B2, and C2 are double in magnitude
as compared with currents in A1, B1, and C1 and for the
time moment when phase A is maximum. ( A1 = 1, A2 = 2,
B1 = −0.5, B2 = −1, C1 = −0.5, and C2 = −1).
The waveform has two different portions. For the first
180 mechanical degrees, the MMF has a smaller maximum
and minimum values due to the smaller current fed in the
ALI et al.: DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF A NOVEL BRUSHLESS WRSM
Fig. 3. MMF plot for 24-slot stator windings.
Fig. 4. Fundamental and subharmonic component of stator MMF.
windings ( A1, B1, and C1). For 180 to 360 mechanical
degrees, the MMF waveform has larger maximum and
minimum peaks due to the higher current magnitude fed to
the windings ( A2, B2, and C2).
This waveform reflects that there are two dominant com-
ponents of the stator MMF (the main component of the
supplied frequency and the subharmonic of half the supplied
frequency), which are produced due to the proposed dual
inverter topology discussed above. These two components are
responsible for the generation of a 4-pole field and a 2-pole
field for the given configuration.
In Fig. 4, the dominant components generated in the sta-
tor MMF are shown. The fundamental component is 4-pole
component with frequency ω. The subharmonic component is
2-pole component with frequency ω/2. The amplitude of the
subharmonic depends upon the required excitation of the rotor
winding. Both components rotate with different speeds and in
opposite directions.
IV. 2-D FEA A NALYSIS
The 2-D FEA was performed for analyzing the performance
of the proposed machine. The machine parameters are summa-
rized in Table I. Simulations are carried out for the motor case.
In Fig. 5, the flux density B is plotted for the stator core.
The right side of the machine portion contains the winding
with double current magnitude, so it has higher flux density
as compared with the left side. Although the use of different
levels of current in the two portions of the stator winding
will obviously cause a heating unbalance, this problem can
be solved by exchanging the high-current and low-current
portions of the windings at fixed time intervals. If Inverter 1
is initially supplying less current than Inverter 2, then after
8109804
TABLE I
D ESIGN PARAMETERS OF THE P ROPOSED B RUSHLESS WRSM
Fig. 5. Stator flux density plot.
Fig. 6. Induced voltage in rotor excitation winding for (a) transition period
and (b) steady-state period.
some time (depending upon the temperature of the windings
in both portions), the Inverter 1 will increase its current and
Inverter 2 will decrease its current.
To evaluate the induced voltage in the rotor excitation
winding, stator winding was given currents for two different
cases. For case 1, the currents in both the winding portions
were kept the same (m = 1), as given in
i a1 = i a2 = 1 ∗ sin (120 ∗ πt). (4)
In this case, no subharmonic is produced, so there in no
voltage induced on the excitation winding.
For case 2, the current in one portion of winding was double
as compared with the other portion of the winding (m = 2),
as given in
i a2 = 2 ∗ i a1 = 2 ∗ sin (120 ∗ πt). (5)
For this case, a subharmonic component is produced
and voltage is induced in the rotor excitation winding. The
simulation results for both the cases are shown in Fig. 6.
In Fig. 6(a), voltages for transition period are shown. The
voltages become uniform after 0.44 s. In Fig. 6(b), voltages
for steady state are shown.
8109804
Fig. 7. Torque for m = 2 for the proposed brushless WRSM.
Fig. 8. Currents for the excitation (E) and field (F) windings.
Fig. 9. Field winding currents for different values of m.
TABLE II
C OMPARISON OF THE P ROPOSED M ACHINE W ITH
THE C ONVENTIONAL WRSM
The proposed machine, when simulated at m = 2, the torque
produced in the machine is shown in Fig. 7. The induced rotor
current for the excitation winding (E) and the rectified current
supplied to the rotor field winding (F) are shown in Fig. 8.
The rectified currents in the field winding of the rotor for
different values of m are plotted in Fig. 9. It shows that we
can vary m depending upon the excitation current required for
the field winding.
To analyze the effectiveness of the proposed brushless
topology, its performance is compared with the conven-
tional WRSM. The comparison is summarized in Table II. For
the proposed brushless WRSM, there is a decrease in average
torque of ∼3% and the efficiency reduced by 2.19%.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 51, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2015
Small deficiencies in average torque and efficiency of the
proposed machine compared with the conventional WRSM can
be justified by brushless and no slip-ring operation.
V. C ONCLUSION
This paper presents a new brushless WRSM based upon
the utilization of the subharmonic of the stator MMF. The
brushless operation overcomes the problems associated with
the conventional brushes and slip rings, and also provides an
alternative for the highly expensive PMSM. The proposed
machine has a dual inverter topology feeding the two portions
of the machine stator winding. The difference in current
magnitude in the two portions of winding is responsible for the
production of additional subharmonic. The suitable applica-
tions for this machine are places where sparking from brushes
has to be avoided, i.e., oil and gas fields, vehicle fuel tanks,
and so on.
To verify the proposed machine, the 2-D FEA analysis was
carried out for the motor case. Simulations were performed
to validate and compare the presented topology with the
conventional one. The results validate the feasibility of the
proposed machine.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was jointly supported by the BK21PLUS pro-
gram through the National Research Foundation of Korea
funded by the Ministry of Education, and by the Human
Resources Program in Energy Technology of the Korea Insti-
tute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP),
granted financial resource from the Ministry of Trade, Industry
and Energy, Republic of Korea (20154030200730).
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