Magnetic Flux Analysis of a New Field-Excitation Flux Switching Motor Using Segmental Rotor

Abstract

Recently, a three-phase field-excitation flux switching motor (FEFSM) with salient rotor structure has been introduced with their advantages of easy rotor temperature removal and controllable field excitation coil (FEC) magnetic flux particularly suitable for high torque, high power, and high-speed diverse performances. Nevertheless, the salient rotor structure is found to lead a longer magnetic flux path between stator and rotor producing weak flux linkage along with low torque performances. Besides, the overlap armature coil and FEC windings yield high coil end length, producing much high copper loss and large motor size. In this paper, a new FEFSM using segmental rotor with non-overlap armature coil and FEC windings is proposed. The shorter magnetic flux path of the proposed segmental rotor is noticeably more focused to produce much higher torque while the non-overlap armature and FEC will reduce the copper loss and motor weight. Both FEFSMs with salient and segmental rotors are designed using 2-D-FEA JMAG Designer version 14.1 for comparison. As a result, magnetic flux of the segmental rotor design is 11 times higher than the salient rotor structure mainly due to shorter magnetic flux linkage between two stator teeth and single rotor segment. The torque and power of 0.91 Nm and 293 W, respectively, are obtained from the new FEFSM which are much higher than salient rotor design. In addition, the simulation and experimental results show a good agreement in back-electromotive force amplitude and waveform at various speeds, as well as similar increment of torque versus FEC current characteristics. As the conclusion, the proposed FEFSM with non-overlap and segmental rotor structure has produced much higher flux, with significant improvement of torque and power performances compared with existing FEFSM with salient rotor.