Electromagnetic Analysis of Flux Barrier U-Shaped Permanent Magnet Vernier Motor

Abstract

Permanent magnet Vernier machines are well suited for direct-drive industrial applications such as ship propulsion drives, because of their ability to generate high torque at low speeds. In this paper, a flux-barrier tapered-U-shaped permanent magnet Vernier (FBU-PMV) machine topology is proposed. This topology is compared with the spoke-array permanent magnet Vernier (SA-PMV) and the flux-barrier spoke-array permanent magnet (FBSA-PMV) machine topologies. The comparison is done in terms of back-EMF, PM flux, air-gap flux density, synchronous inductance, torque, and power factor, by employing finite element (FE) analysis for the same machine dimensions. It is shown that the proposed FBU-PMV machine topology competes reasonably well with the existing ones even with 25% less PM usage. In addition, the mechanical construction of this new topology also possesses certain advantages.