2012 IEEE 8th International Colloquium on Signal Processing and its Applications

Universal Computer Aided Design for Electrical

Machines
Aravind CV1 Grace. I2 Rozita T2 Rajparthiban R3 Rajprasad R4 Wong YV4
1
Taylors university Malaysia
2
UCSI University Malaysia
3
Manipal International University Malaysia
4
The Nottingham University Malaysia
1
aravindcv@ieee.org

Abstract— Electrical machines are devices that convert the
mechanical to electrical energy or vice-versa. The need for
electrical machines cannot be over emphasized as they are used
in various applications in the world today. Its design is to meet
the specifications as stated by the user and this design has to be
an economical one. The design therefore involves the stipulated
performance required, the cost available and the lasting life of
the machine. This work aims to eliminate the tediousness
involved in the manual hand calculations of designing the
machines by making use of a graphical user interface and using
iterations in situations where the data would have been assumed.
MATLAB programming is extensively used for the design aspects
and the interface to CAD tool help the user to develop a machine
based on the requirement ready to fabricate.
design of rotary reluctance motor [5-6]. Based on the output
developed from the design tool the machine is fabricated and
experimentally verified for performance parameters and is
documented in [5]. Fig. 1 shows the introductory toolbox
interface that helps to choose the type of electrical machine.
The materials used for the design of electrical machines
greatly depend on the hysteresis loop of the machines. The BH
curve for the various materials used for the design of this
toolbox and is as shown in the Fig. 2. The choice of the
material used is based on the industry standard material used
for the fabrication of electrical machines.

Keywords: Machine design, CAD tool, MATLAB, GUI

I. INTRODUCTION

The design of motor in general is a complex procedure and

hence requires an easy and understandable design method and
tool for the designer. CAD design for this work looks into the
design of DC machine, induction machines, synchronous
machines, transformers, Rotary SRM and the inductance
profile of reluctance machines [1]. There are numerous design
tools available for commercial and research applications and
most of them cater to the design of particular type of machine
Figure 1. Introductory GUI
design. This work is motivated with the aim of developing a
universal GUI based tool based on MATLAB programming
that would help the user to design and also validate the
3.5
comparison of the design across machines. The design tool
caters for machines that use static (transformers) and dynamic 3.0
machines (AC and DC machines). The AC machine design
2.5
also includes the induction (single and three phase),
Flux density (T)

synchronous and reluctance based machines. Induction 2.0

machine design includes the design for both the wound rotor
and squirrel cage and the synchronous machine design 1.5
M22
includes both the salient and round rotor type. The transformer 1.0 M19
design includes design for both the shell and core type. The Lohys
42 quality
designs have been made with the optimal consideration to the 0.5
cast -steel
performance of the machine. This development on the design
0.0
of electrical machine is looked considerable into the design of 10 100 1000 10000 100000 1000000
various machines [2-3], [5-6]. The reluctance machine design AT/m
works on the inductance profile and design of the rotary SRM
[4] [6]. The developed tool is successfully tested with the Figure 2. Magnetization curves

978-1-4673-0961-5/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE 99

 2012 IEEE 8th International Colloquium on Signal Processing and its Applications

II. MACHINE DESIGN where Iz.Z is the total electric loading, ac is the specific electric
loading in A/m. The specific electric loading, is given as
A. General design requirements
.
(5)

B. Transformer design
Fig.4 shows the design parameters required for the shell type
and core type of transformer design. Although shell type
transformers are hardly used, they are still in used in small
capacity machines. Both types of transformers are designed
based on the flowchart procedure as shown in Fig. 5. An
illustration on the design of transformer enables the user to be
able to select the core type, number of phases and the winding
required. For the GUI design, provisions are made so that the
designer can pick if the type of core required, number of
phases and windings to be used.

Hy Hy
Yoke Yoke

a a

Ww
D Ww Ww
W W
10 core transformer 10 core shell

Figure 3. Generalized machine design flowchart Figure 4. Transformers input parameters

Fig.3 is a generalised design procedure for electrical
machines. The analysis on the design reluctance machine is
presented extensively in [1], [4-6]. The design of the other
electrical machines is presented in [2-3]. The design
procedure looks into the design of the main dimensions, field
windings, no load calculations, performance characteristics
and others. For all machines the main criteria for the design is
getting the output coefficient. The output coefficient is given
by
(1)

where P is the output of the machine in KVA, D is the

diameter of armature (m) and L is the armature length (mm),
and N is the speed of the machine (rpm). The magnetic and
electric loadings are as:

P B πDL [Wb] (2)

where Bav = specific magnetic loading (Wb/m2), D is diameter

of the armature (m) and L is the length of the armature (m)
and P is the number of poles. The specific magnetic loading is Figure 5. Transformer flowchart
given by
B (3)
C. Induction machine design
The design GUI for the induction machine is classified for the
design of both the single phase and three phase modes of
Total electric loading is given as
operation. Fig. 6 shows the base input parameters required for
the design of the induction motor.
. (4)

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 2012 IEEE 8th International Colloquium on Signal Processing and its Applications
Figure 6. Induction machine input parameters
Figure 7. Induction machine design
Fig.7 shows the flowchart logic used for the design. The slip
of induction motor matters a lot as it greatly affects the torque
of the motor. The slip is the difference between the
synchronous speed and the actual speed. The need for slip is
because an induction motor does not generate voltage when
the rotor is running at a synchronous speed to that of the
magnetic field. A higher difference in the slip, yields a large
torque value. The graph from the GUI shows that with
increase in the slip of the machine, the torque is greatly
increased until it gets to a value where the slow speed in
movement of the rotor is not strong enough to cut across the
magnetic field thereby resulting in a reduction in the torque
produced.
D. Synchronous machine design
The open circuit characteristics test is taken when the
generator is operating without load, running at synchronous
speed and the field current is increased from zero to
maximum.
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Figure 8. Synchronous motor CS
Figure 9. Synchronous machine design
As seen from the graph in the GUI (refer to Fig.15) the curve
is almost perfectly linear until some saturation is seen at high
field currents. This is because the reluctance of the motor at an
unsaturated iron frame is far less than that of the air gap
thereby all mmf seem to pass through the air gap. As the iron
gets saturated, the reluctance increases rather slowly. Fig.8
and Fig.9 shows respectively synchronous machine parameters
and the flowchart logic used in the design.
E. DC machine design
Fig. 10 shows the input parameter required for the design and
Fig. 11 shows the flowchart used for the DC machine design.
However the current design is restricted to only separately
excited DC machines.
 2012 IEEE 8th International Colloquium on Signal Processing and its Applications

Figure 12. Reluctance machine input parameters

Figure 10. DC machine CS

Figure 13. Reluctance machine design

Figure 11. DC machine design

F. Reluctance machine design

The reluctance machine design using the GUI is done by
giving the design values. If the average torque generated does
not give the required output, the user is required to change
some inputs parameters such as the stator and rotor pole arc.
This helps the average torque closer to the required torque.
When this is achieved, the motor can then be said to have been
optimised. The validation on the design of rotary design of
reluctance machine is presented by analytical and
experimental comparison as shown in [5]. The motor designed
is shown in Fig.14. Fig. 15 shows the various interfaces
developed for the toolbox and the Fig.16 shows the CAD of
machines.
Figure 14. Developed machine based on the GUI [5]
III. CONCLUSIONS
A generalised tool box for optimisation of computer aided
design for electrical machines has been built successfully. The
reluctance design has been verified by using analytical and
experimental in [5-6]. The future directions being the
consideration of the cost of the machine, available materials to
be used, human labour available, temperature rise and other
constraints.

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 2012 IEEE 8th International Colloquium on Signal Processing and its Applications

REFERENCES [4] Praveen V., Design of Switched Reluctance Motors and

[1] Krishnan, R., “Switched Reluctance Motor Drives: Modeling,
Simulation, Analysis, Design, and Applications”, CRC Press, 2001
[2] Aravind C.V, Kamala K. C. (2003). Design of electrical apparatus.
Chennai: Charulatha publications
[3] K.M. Vishnu Murthy (2008). Computer Aided Design of
Electrical Machines. Hyderabad: BS Publications
Development of a Universal Controller for SRM and PMBLDC
Drives, 2001, pp. 1-104.
[5] Samuel Bright., Aravind CV, Rozita, “Design of reluctance motors
for low speed applications” Bachelor’s degree Thesis, May2011
[6] Aravind CV, Grace IK, Samuel Bright, Rozita T, “Optimised
toolbox for the design of rotary reluctance motors” Presented at the
International conference on STUDENT 2011, Kualalumpur, 21-22
Oct 2011

Figure 15. Various GUI developed in this design

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 2012 IEEE 8th International Colloquium on Signal Processing and its Applications

(a) Squirrel cage induction motor (b) Synchronous motor

(c) DC motor (d) Reluctance motor

(e) Transformer

Figure 16. Output design from the GUI input for various machine input

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