Mid Sweden University

To verify the FEM simulation of the air-gap flux density, it is necessary to measure the flux density distribution as function of the angular machine position. This paper presents a scalable 3-D direct air-gap flux density magnitude measurement system for rotating electrical machines. A combination of eight linear Hall effect flux sensors and a rotary encoder is used to measure the flux density magnitude as function of the angular machine position. The system is designed for permanent magnet motors with an air gap of at least 1 mm, but can also be used for other types of machines. The miniaturized sensor array with the flux sensors is 0.7 mm thick, and measures the distribution of the air-gap flux density magnitude in a range of ±2 T along the rotor axis. The design of the measurement system is described and tested on a prototype of an electronically commutated permanent magnet DC motor. The obtained measurement results are compared with the FEM simulation results of the prototype motor. A good match between the simulated and measured flux density magnitude is shown. The conclusions presented in this study, are used to further optimize the simulation model and the prototype motor.

This paper proposes an extremely-low voltage high current MOSFET-based drive architecture. A single-turn multiphase winding design allows a copper fill factor approaching one. The single-turn coil design leads to a low EMF voltage and high current design which requires a matched drive system. To identify the technical design obstacles and verify the feasibility of the proposed architecture, a small scale prototype is built and successfully tested. The described prototype consists of an extremely-low voltage 13-phase single-turn coil permanent magnet DC motor and MOSFET-based commutator. The prototype's locked rotor-torque and no-load power consumption, as well as the EMF voltage measurements are presented and the DC motor constants are extracted. The experimental results from the prototype measurements indicate a promising potential for cost-effective extremely-low voltage high current MOSFET-based drive systems.

Rapid development of extremely-low voltage high current MOSFETs allows reversing common design principles to explore new applications, such as battery powered traction drives. This enables the usage of multi-phase single-turn stator windings which can achieve a copper fill factor close to one. This paper briefly describes the proposed 2V, 1.1kW MOSFET commutated 13-phase permanent magnet DC motor and presents the efficiency and resistive loss measurements of the first prototype. The motor was successfully run with drive currents up to 520 A. Most of the obtained losses were resistive contact losses due to the flexible winding connections, less than 6% are dedicated to the MOSFETs. The results show that such a high current drive system is feasible and has great potential for further improvements, which is supported by the rapid development of extremely-low voltage high current semiconductors.

A high copper fill factor allows reducing the resistive losses responsible for more than 50 % of the losses in today's most commonly used electrical motors. Single-turn windings achieve a copper fill factor close to one. Furthermore, they do not suffer from turn to turn faults and provide a low thermal resistance between winding and stator. The reduced EMF of single-turn winding configurations promotes the use of extra-low voltage high current MOSFETs. Rapid development of these MOSFETs allows reversing common design principles to explore new applications, such as battery electric traction drives. This paper presents a 2.5 V 1 kW MOSFET driven 13-phase permanent magnet DC motor with a single-turn winding configuration. The motor prototype with a copper fill factor of 0.84 was tested with continuous drive currents up to 600 A. The measured torque-efficiency map shows that such a high-current concept with voltages below 60 V is feasible using today's extremely low-voltage high current semiconductors. Due to the rapid development of such switches, there is great potential in this concept for further improvements. This work presents a small-scale version of the high-current drive, which is part of the development of an extra-low voltage traction drive concept.