2018 Volume 42 Issue 3 Pages 62-71
An interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (IPMSM) using a stator core made of grain-oriented (GO) anisotropic magnetic material is manufactured to evaluate the potential iron loss reduction that GO can bring compared to the conventionally used non-oriented (NO) quasi-isotropic silicon steel. The stator core is divided into yoke and teeth pieces that are arranged so that the GO material easy magnetization direction follows the main magnetic flux that flows in the core during the motor operation. The motor iron loss is measured under two conditions: 1) the IPMSM is rotated by an external motor (“drag force operation”), 2) the IPMSM is driven by a pulse-width modulation (PWM) inverter without load (“no-load operation”). The manufactured motor shows 13.5 % iron loss reduction during drag force operation and 5 % reduction during no-load operation. Numerical calculation is also carried out by 2-D finite element analysis (FEA) to confirm the experimental data.
