Multi-Physics Tool for Electrical Machine Sizing

Abstract

Society is turning to electrification to reduce air pollution, increasing electric machine demand. For industrial mass production, a detailed design of one machine is usually done first, then a design of similar machines, but different ratings are reached by geometry scaling. This design process may be highly time-consuming, so, in this paper, a new sizing method is proposed to reduce this time, maintaining accuracy. It is based on magnetic flux and thermal maps, both linked with an algorithm so that the sizing process of an electrical machine can be carried out in less than one minute. The magnetic flux maps are obtained by Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and the thermal maps are obtained by analytical models based on Lumped Parameter Circuits (LPC), applying a time-efficient procedure. The proposed methodology is validated in a real case study, sizing 10 different industrial machines. Then, the accuracy of the sizing tool is validated performing the experimental test over the 10 machines. A very good agreement is achieved between the experimental results and the performances calculated by the sizing tools, as the maximum error is around 5%.

Keywords

• sizing methodology
• electrical machines
• thermal model
• electromagnetic model
• permanent magnet