Design and Thermal Analysis of Traction Motor for Electric Vehicle Based on Driving Duty Cycle

JinXin Fan1*, Student Member, IEEE, ChengNing Zhang1, Zhifu Wang1, A. R. Tariq2, Student Member, IEEE, C. E. Nino2, Student Member, IEEE, E. G. Strangas2 Senior Member, IEEE 1 National Engineering Laboratory for Electric Vehicle, Beijing Institute of Technology No.5 South Street of Zhongguancun, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, China 2 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University, MI 48823, USA *jinxinfan@gmail.com
Abstract To reduce cost and improve efficiency, a novel design concept of a traction motor for electric vehicle based on a driving cycle is proposed. In comparison with conventional design method of electric motors, the proposed design concept considers the real load condition and highlights special requirements of electric vehicle. Based on the proposed approach, an interior permanent magnet traction motor is designed with high average efficiency overall operation region. The thermal behavior of the designed traction motor is investigated and the temperature distribution in key parts under the driving cycle is obtained. To verify validity and generality of the proposed designed concept, a surface mount permanent magnet traction motor is designed and evaluated by experiment.

Fig. 1 Driving cycle

Fig. 2 Operating points and efficiency map

III. THERMAL ANALYSIS Due to the complex load condition of EV, it is important to analyze thermal behavior of traction motor under the driving cycle and guarantee the temperature rise in the traction motor within limits. Heat losses are accurately calculated by finite element method, which including copper losses and iron losses as well as mechanical losses [3]. The five typical magnetic field regions with flux distribution are shown in Fig.3. Temperature distribution in various key parts of traction motor under the driving cycle is obtained by lumped parameter thermal circuit [4], as shown in Fig. 4.

I. INTRODUCTION Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machines (PMSM) are widely used in electric vehicles (EVs) due to their high power density, wide field weakening range and high efficiency. The conventional electric motor design method highlighted a certain operating points and the drive efficiency was defined at that point [1], [2], however, a motor with high efficiency in one operating point might not be efficient overall operating points. Since electric vehicle requires the traction motor with high torque at low speed for starting and acceleration and high power at high speed for cruising as well as high efficiency at a wide operation range. In this case, the conventional design method is not suitable for EV application. In this paper, a novel design concept of traction motors is proposed. To guarantee the temperature rise within limits, heat losses distributed in various parts of traction motor is accurately calculated by finite element method. To obtain the temperature distribution under overall driving cycle, a lumped parameter thermal circuit is adopted. To verify the validity and generality of proposed approach, a surface mount PMSM is designed and tested. II. PROPOSED DESIGN APPROACH The torque speed requirements of a traction machine for an EV are calculated using parameters of vehicle and transmission as well as the driving cycle. The design parameters are tuned iteratively in order to achieve high average efficiency overall the driving cycle. Fig. 1 shows efficiency map and torque speed curve of an IPMSM designed based on the driving cycle using the proposed approach. It can be found that the average efficiency is around 95% overall the driving cycle.

Fig. 3 Five typical region of IPMSM Fig. 4 Temperature distribution

IV.
[1] [2] [3]

FERENCES

[4]

Z.Rahman, M. Ehsani, and K. L. Butler, An investigation of electric motor drive characteristics for EV and HEV propulsion systems, SAE Technical Paper Series, Paper #2000-01-3062 John M. Miller, Propulsion Systems for Hybrid Vehicles. The Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2004. K. Yamazaki and Y. Seto, Iron loss analysis of interior permanentmagnet synchronous motors-variation of main loss factors due to driving condition, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 10451052, Jul./Aug. 2006. P. D. Mellor, D. Roberts, and D. R. Turner, Lumped parameter thermal model for electrical machines of TEFC design, Proc. Inst. Electr. Eng. Electric Power Applications, vol. 138, no. 5, pp. 205218, Sep. 1991.

978-1-4244-7062-4/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE