Skin effect in steel sheets under rotating induction

Abstract

By means of a newly developed broadband measuring setup we have overcome the usual upper limit for the test frequency, around a few hundred Hz, which is encountered in the two-dimensional characterization of magnetic steel sheets at technical inductions and we have measured the rotational losses in low-carbon steels up to 1 kHz and peak induction 1.7 T. An important piece of information is thus retrieved upon a frequency range useful to predict the performance of high-speed electrical machines. Our experiments, performed on thick (0.640 mm) laminations, have brought to light the emergence of the skin effect under rotational fields. This is revealed by an abrupt deviation of the excess loss component, calculated under the conventional loss separation procedure, from its well-known linear dependence on the square root of the frequency. A simple magnetic constitutive law under rotating induction is proposed and introduced into the electromagnetic diffusion equation, which is solved by finite elements coupled to a non-linear algorithm. The classical rotational eddy current loss, largely prevalent with respect to the hysteresis and excess loss components on approaching the kHz frequencies in low-carbon steels, is then calculated in the presence of skin effect, permitting one to achieve full analysis of the rotational losses and good predicting capability upon a broad range of frequencies and peak inductions.