Computationally efficient skew effect calculation in electric machines utilising harmonic Maxwellian stress decomposition

A novel finite element solution post-processing technique to determine the effects of rotor skewing is presented in this paper. It was previously proposed that a post-processing semi-numerical method to calculate the harmonic torque components in synchronous machines is useful to machine designers. Harmonic Maxwellian stress components create parasitic effects during machine operation such as torque ripple, which is extremely undesirable in many applications and is a major cause of acoustic noise and vibration which can limit the machine's application. Rotor skewing usually allows reduction of this torque ripple and this paper expands previous work to include a good approximation of skewing effects using a single 2D time stepping Finite Element (FE) study with the developed post-processing method. The method reduces computation time for skew effect calculation where a large 3D FE simulation would usually be required.