Torque-to-Weight Ratio Improvement with Soft

Magnetic Composite Material in High Speed

Switched Reluctance Motor
K. Vijayakumar*, R. Karthikeyan*, G.K.Sathishkumar#, R. Arumugam**, Member IEEE,
*Research scholar, # ITC InfoTech, Bangalore, ** Retired Professor Department of Electrical Engineering, Anna University, Chennai, India.
k_vijaymec@yahoo.com, vijipreethi@rediffmail.com

Abstract- In aircraft electric motor drive fuel delivery system,

the motor must be characterized by high power density, II. SWITCHED RELUCTANCE MOTOR
reliability, less size, less weight and high speed [1]. The high speed
operation, fault tolerance, high power density makes switched
reluctance motor an ideal candidate for high speed aerospace
applications. This paper investigates the application potential of
soft magnetic composite material (SOMALOY 500) characterized
by three dimensional ferromagnetic behavior, very low eddy
current loss, flexible machine design and assembly in high-speed
switched reluctance motor. Two configurations (i) all sheet metal
(ii) all Soft magnetic composite have been studied using finite
element analysis to obtain their magnetic characteristics. The
weight of active parts has been evaluated for the two
configurations to determine torque-to-weight ratio. The study
reveals that the all soft magnetic composite configuration albeit
suffers from poor average torque, digress in torque-to-weight Fig. 1. Geometric Model of 6/4 Switched reluctance motor.
ratio from conventional model is not very much which makes it a
viable alternative in high speed aerospace applications. A switched reluctance motor is an electrical machine in
which the torque is developed by the tendency of the rotor to
occupy a position so as to minimize the reluctance of the
Keywords - Finite element analysis (FEA), Inductance profile, magnetic path of the excited stator phase winding. The
Soft magnetic composite (SMC), Switched reluctance motor (SRM).
switched reluctance motor is a doubly salient but singly excited
machine wherein the stator carries the winding while the rotor
I. INTRODUCTION is simply made of stacked silicon steel laminations. This lends
The low cost, high speed, high power density, fault tolerance to a simpler geometry for switched reluctance motors as
and reliability of switched reluctance motor make it a viable evidenced from the two dimensional (2D) CAD model of a 6/4
alternative in aircraft electric-motor-driven fuel pump system. switched reluctance motor shown in Fig. 1.
Recently soft magnetic composite materials find rampant
applications in electrical machines [3] and these materials are The switched reluctance motor considered for this study is a
characterized by three dimensional isotropic ferromagnetic 6/4 model designed for high-speed applications whose
behaviors, very low eddy current loss, flexible machine design specifications are given in Appendix and whose projected
and assembly and a prospect for greatly reduced production model is shown in Fig. 2.
cost. This paper investigates the use of soft magnetic
composite material in switched reluctance motor designed for
high-speed aerospace applications from a study of its static
magnetic characteristics. Two configurations viz (i) All
laminated sheet steels (ii) All Soft Magnetic Composites
(SMC) have been extensively studied using finite element
analysis based software tool. The study concludes that all
SMCs configuration albeit its poor average torque in
comparison with conventional motor, promises to possess
acceptable torque-to-weight ratio which makes it a suitable
candidate in high speed aerospace applications along with
better thermal and mechanical characteristics.
Fig. 2. Projected Model of 6/4 Switched Reluctance Motor.

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 III. SOFT MAGNETIC COMPOSITE MATERIALS IN
ROTATING ELECTRICAL MACHINES
Electrical steel lamination is the most commonly used core
material in electrical machines. Electrical steels are typically
classified into grain-oriented electrical steels and non-oriented
electrical steels. Typical applications for grain-oriented steels
are power transformer cores whereas non-oriented steels are
broadly used in different kinds of rotating electrical machines.
Electromechanical steels currently used in the manufacture of
electrical machines posses high induction of magnetic
saturation (Bs~2T), low coercive force (Hc< 100A/m), and they
are characterized by low total losses [2] and [4]. Electrical
sheet steels have been the dominant choice for the soft iron
components in electrical machines subject to time varying
magnetic fields. The new soft iron powder metallurgy
materials can be considered as an alternative for magnetic core
Fig .4. B-H characteristics of laminated steel and SMC.
of the electrical machines. The basis for soft magnetic
composites is bonded iron powder developed by Hoganas of
Sweden [5] as shown in Fig. 3. The powder is coated, pressed IV. THE 2D NUMERICAL FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS
into a solid material using a die, and heat-treated to anneal and
The time stepped finite element analysis is the most
cure the bond.
accurate method available to obtain the magnetic
characteristics in an electromagnetic device. In this paper a
two-dimensional finite element analysis has been carried out
on the two machines depicted in table I using FEA based CAD
package MagNet 6.22.1

TABLE I STUDIED STRUCTURES

Configuration -1 Configuration -2

Laminated sheet steel stator Soft Magnetic Composite (SMC)

(M19) stator

Fig. 3. Iron powder after (a) coating and (b) compression. Laminated sheet steel rotor
Soft Magnetic Composite (SMC) rotor
(M19)
The B-H characteristics of M19 silicon steel and SMC
material SOMALOY 500, shown in Fig. 4, reveals that
although the SMC has inferior relative permeability when The following assumptions are made in determining the
compared with lamination steel it still posses the following magnetic field distribution inside the motor using finite
desirable characteristics [3]. element analysis [6].
a. The outer periphery of the stator can be treated as a zero
a. Reduced copper volume as a result of increased fill factor vector potential line with the magnetic field outside the
and reduced end winding length and reduced copper loss stator is negligible.
as a result of the reduced copper volume, b. Magnetic materials of stator and rotor are isotropic and the
b. Reduced high frequency tooth ripple losses since the SMC magnetization curve is single valued.
has essentially very low eddy current losses, c. Magnetic vector potential (A) and current density (J) has
c. Potential for reduced air gap length as a result of the tight only z-directed components.
tolerances maintained in manufacturing SMC material, d. End effects are neglected.
d. Modular construction allows the possibility of easy
removal of an individual modular unit for quick repair or The fine mesh has been employed to enhance the accuracy
replacement, of the results that has been obtained .The meshed structure of
e. Stator is easily recyclable since the stator can again be the model is depicted in Fig. 5.
compressed back into powered form with pressure and the
copper windings readily removed.

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 table II. The computational results show that there is a 4%
difference in weight of the all SMC material configuration in
comparison with all sheet steel configurations which has a
profound impact in machines of bigger size thus resulting a
substantial saving in the usage of material for all SMC
configuration, which leads to lower production cost.
TABLE II MASS OF ACTIVE PARTS OF MOTOR CONFIGURATIONS

Volume Weight (kg) Weight (kg)

3 Configuration Configuration
Fig. 5. Fine mesh for the two dimensional CAD model of the machine.
Parts Formula ( m ) 1 2
Yoke of
rotor π (r1 − r0 ) Lstk
2 2 2.94
X10 -5
0.233 0.215
The flux lines plot obtained at the aligned position is shown in Poles of 1.32
Fig. 6. rotor N r .tr .d r .Lstk X10 -5
0.100 0.096

Total 4.26
(Yoke +Poles) rotor 0.323 0.311
rotor X10 -5
Shaft of
rotor Lstk .π .rsh 2 9.74
X10 -6
0.074 0.074

Yoke of
stator Lstk .π .(r32 − r2 2 ) 9.27
X10 –5
0.704 0.677

Poles of 4.49
stator N s .t s .d s .Lstk X10 -5
0.341 0.328

Total 1.38
(Yoke +Poles) stator 1.046 1.006
stator X10 -4

0.348
2⋅ h ⋅ b ⋅ L ⋅N 3.88X10-
Winding
c c stk s 5

Total
(Stator + Rotor) 18 X10 -5 1.718 1.666
motor
% Difference in Weight between configurations with conventional
machine (ie. Configuration 1) 4%

Fig. 6. Flux lines plot of two-dimensional model at aligned position.

The aligned and unaligned inductances for two configurations
IV. STATIC MAGNETIC CHARACTERIZATION has been computed and listed in table III.
CONFIGURATION-1 (VS) CONFIGURATION-2
The saturation region of operation of configuration - 2 has TABLE III COMPARISON OF THE UNALIGNED AND ALIGNED
been determined by a comparison of the self-inductance INDUCTANCES FOR THE TWO CONFIGURATIONS
variation of an excited phase as a function of rotor position
with current level variation from 5A to 20A as shown in Fig. 7. Configuration 1 2

Aligned inductance (H) 0.016 0.012

Unaligned inductance (H) 0.005 0.005

The variation in aligned inductance between configurations 1

and 2 at aligned positions amounts to 25% showing the effect
of material non-linearity and permeability on the inductance
profile. The static torque characteristic at the current density of
8A/mm2 has been estimated for the two configurations and is
shown in Fig. 8, along with the comparison table IV. For the
two configurations the differences are wide as for as static
Fig. 7. Self-inductance profile for configuration – 2.
torque curve shapes as well as their maximum torque levels are
concerned. The superior permeability of lamination material
The weight of active parts of the two configurations has been
renders configuration-1, the most powerful machine with the
estimated from geometrical and the material data as shown in

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level of torque obtained, while the torque-to-weight ratio is APPENDIX
23% higher than configuration-2, the all SMCs.

TABLE IV: COMPARISON OF STATIC TORQUES

Configuration 1 2

Effective Torque (N.m) 2.18 1.59

Torque/weight (N.m/Kg) 1.59 1.20

Difference in T/W ratio (N.m/Kg)

from 23.35
conf.1 %

Main Dimensions of the 6/4 Configuration.

Stator diameter (Ds) = 90mm
Rotor diameter (Dr) = 45mm
Stack length (Lstk) = 45mm
Overall length (Le) = 73.6mm
Stator pole width (ts) = 11.9mm
Rotor pole width (tr) = 12.4mm
Stator pole depth (ds) = 14mm
Rotor pole depth (dr) = 5.9mm
Stator yoke thickness (ys) = 8mm
Rotor yoke thickness (yr) = 8.3mm
Airgap (g) = 0.5mm
No. of stator poles (Ns) = 6
No. of stator poles (Nr) = 4
Stator pole arc (ßs) = 30 degree
Rotor pole arc (ßr) = 32 degree
Shaft diameter (Dsh) = 16.6mm
Power rating = 0.5hp
Fig. 8. Static Torque Characteristics of the two configurations. Turns per phase = 110
Speed (N) = 8000rpm
In the context of high-speed applications, apart from the Rated current = 15A
output obtained, the configuration-2 outweighs in terms of
thermal capability, manufacturability, design modularity and REFERENCES
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Electrical Machines”, International Conference on Electrical Machines,
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