Simulink Simulation of an Airgapless Motor

Chuyue Tang, Purdue University

Abstract

Nowadays, electrical motors are widely used in the automotive industry because of their high efficiency and lossless characteristics. One downside is that the system is complicated to control and it requires more complex control strategies. Moreover, compared to other motors, electrical motors produce less torque, which limits its capability Therefore, in this thesis, an air-gapless electric motor is presented. Instead of having a static air gaps between the rotor and the stator, the gap changes dynamically creating contact which generates higher torques. A SIMULINK simulation method is used for this motor in order to show the systems dynamic behaviors. Five blocks are used in the system: the block to find phase currents, the block to find phase torque, the block to find self-inductance, the block to obtain mechanical speed of the motor and the block to simulate the saturation effect. These blocks are developed based on the analytical relationships between components, which are shown in Chapter two. Moreover, saturation effect in the iron cores is taken into consideration in this thesis due to the fact that it always effects the shape of the magnetic field curves. And four different materials are discussed and compared in Chapter three. The findings in this chapter is that carbon steel and silicon steel serve as better materials of the rotor in the air-gapless motor than soft ferrite and nickel steel because they tend to have higher torques under same levels of the currents and they have larger torque stability regions. As for Chapter four, a current control strategy is proposed with an inverter, this could simulate the current controller in a real application. Trial and error PID controller tuning method is discussed in Chapter four.

Degree

M.Sc.

Advisors

dos Santos, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Design|Electromagnetics|High Temperature Physics|Hydraulic engineering|Materials science|Physics|Thermodynamics

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