Analytical Modeling of Eddy Current Losses and Thermal Analysis of Non-Uniform-Air-Gap Combined-Pole Permanent Magnet Motors for Electric Vehicles

Abstract

In order to solve the problem of large eddy current losses and high temperature rises caused by a large number of permanent magnets, a new type of combined-magnetic-pole permanent magnet motor is proposed in this paper. The sinusoidally distributed subdomain model of a non-uniform-air-gap rotor was established using the Laplace equation, and the analytical expression of eddy current losses in the rotor in a uniform air gap and non-uniform air gap was derived. The effect of the rotor’s eccentricity on eddy current losses was obtained. According to the characteristics of the distributed winding of the non-uniform-air-gap combined-pole permanent magnet motor, an equivalent treatment was performed to obtain the equivalent thermal conductivity value; to establish an equivalent thermal network model of the motor; determine the temperature of each component of the motor; and verify the correctness of the thermal network model through magnetothermal bidirectional coupling. Finally, an experimental platform was set up to carry out temperature rise experiments on the two prototypes. The experimental results show that a non-uniform-air-gap rotor structure can effectively reduce a rotor’s eddy current losses and motor temperature rise, as well as verify the accuracy of the analytical model’s calculation results.

Keywords

• combined-pole permanent magnet motor
• non-uniform air gap
• eddy current loss
• thermal analysis
• equivalent thermal network