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An Efficient Approach for Cogging Torque Analysis of Motors with Three-Dimensional Flux Distribution
Min-Fu Hsieh, Member, IEEE, Mi-Ching Tsai, Senior Member, IEEE, Alex Horng, and Yi-Chi Lai
simulation. Prieto et al [5] point out the drawbacks of using 3D FEA, including complicated problem definitions, convergence problem, and very long simulation time due to a large number of elements. Hence, the authors develop a simplified method called the "double 2-D" for analyses of 3-D components. However, the method mainly focuses on static magnetic components without permanent magnets, e.g., transformers. Mao and Tsai [6] also apply a simplified method for analysis of a switched reluctance motor with 3-D flux distribution.

AbstractThis paper presents an efficient finite-element-based approach for a cogging torque analysis of pancake-type motors with inherent three-dimensional (3-D) flux distributions. For such cases, 3-D finite element analysis (FEA) that accounts for all 3-D effects is often required for convincing and reliable results. However, to obtain sufficient information, a considerable number of models may need to be created and result in a time-consuming analysis process using 3-D FEA. Therefore, a method named the "2-D Plus" is proposed to significantly improve the time efficiency of analysis based on two-dimensional techniques without sacrificing accuracy. Complete and smooth cogging torque waveforms can then be rapidly produced with the aid of only two extra 3-D models. The results from the presented technique agree well with that from 3-D simulations. The effectiveness of the proposed method in cogging torque analysis is thus verified. Index Termscogging torque, 3-D flux distribution, finite element analysis
I.

INTRODUCTION
Fig. 1 Conventional spindle motors [4]

ERMANENT-MAGNET (PM) brushless motors have been more and more widely applied in various occasions due to their high power and torque density, high efficiency, and maintenance free. However, the inherent cogging torque is considered as a critical issue for some applications such as hard disk or DVD-ROM spindle motors, where considerable effort has been made for cogging torque reduction [1,2]. As shown in Fig. 1, conventional spindle motors have a typical configuration of 3 phases, 12 poles and 9 slots, which are often criticized for the high cost and complexity of manufacturing as well as the difficulty to miniaturize [3,4]. Research has been conducted for application of pancake-type motors to DVD-ROM or hard disk drives with an emphasis on elimination of the above disadvantages [1-4]. Unlike conventional spindle motors, pancake-type motors possess a 3-dimensional (3-D) flux distribution, which requires 3-D finite element analysis (FEA) for characteristic

Manuscript received March 13, 2006. This work was supported by Sunonwealth Electric Machine Industry Co., Ltd. M. F. Hsieh is with the Department of Systems and Naval Mechatronic Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan ROC (phone: +886-6-2747018 Ext. 216; fax: +886-6-2747019; e-mail: mfhsieh@mail.ncku.edu.tw). M. C. Tsai and Y. C. Lai are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan ROC (email: mctsai@mail.ncku.edu.tw). A. Horng is with Sunonwealth Electric Machine Industry Co., Ltd., Kaohsiung, Taiwan ROC (e-mail: sunon@email.sunon.com.tw).

To overcome the disadvantages of 3-D simulations, this paper proposes an approach named the "2-D Plus," which applies FEA for cogging torque analysis of pancake-type motors and that with similar configurations. The finite element package ANSOFT EM Field Simulator is employed here [7]. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the "2-D Plus," a spindle motor [3,4] and a fan motor, as shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b), respectively, are investigated. The "2-D Plus" analysis first superposes two separate 2-D simulation results directly for each motor so that a smooth back EMF waveform is rapidly plotted. This is useful for qualitative prediction but would be rough quantitatively as the 3-D effects are entirely neglected. A procedure is further employed to determine a modification factor using only two extra 3-D models so that the waveform obtained by the 2-D superposition is modified to an accurate representation. Therefore, with the "2-D Plus," the simulation of a motor with 3-D flux distribution can be performed using 2-D analyses "plus" two 3-D models instead of 3-D analysis. This would be significantly time-efficient for research such as cogging torque reduction by shaping of stator salient poles or magnet pole arcs, where iterative calculation is required. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the motors investigated, followed by presentation of the analysis and results in Section 3. Conclusion is given at the end.

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2 modification is necessary for accurate quantitative analysis and will be detailed in the following section. For demonstration, the results obtained by the "2-D Plus" will be compared with that from 3-D modeling on this pancake-type spindle motor. The fan motor shown in Fig. 2(b) has a similar layout to the spindle motor but the number of salient poles and magnetic poles is reduced to half. Also, the shape and dimension of the salient poles is different. The major parameters of the fan motor are listed in Table 1 (dimension shown in Fig. 2(b)).
single layer magnet iron core magnet upper lower modification is required only thickness of iron core is considered

(a) Pancake-type spindle motor [4]

Magnet
actual layout

One Stator Layer (b) Fan motor and stator dimension (only one stator layer is displayed) Fig. 2 Investigated pancake-type (a) spindle and (b) fan motors

Fig. 4 Contrast between the single layer (2-D) and actual layout (3-D) TABLE I Major parameters of fan motor Symbol Value and unit Magnet coercivity -121000 A/m Remanence 0.16 Tesla Stator and rotor back iron property H23 (Kawasaki Steel Corporation)

II. ANALYSIS The single-phase spindle motor shown in Fig. 2(a) contains two layers of stator yoke, with 6 salient poles on each layer. There is a 30 degree shift in mechanical angle between the two layers, which are linked by a shaft. The single-phase winding is simply wound around the shaft and in between the two stator layers. The details about the dimensions and material property of the single-phase, 12-slot, 12-pole motor can be found in [3] and does not recur here. From the flux indicated in Fig. 3, it is apparent that the flux is in 3-dimensional distribution. Also, a cogging torque cycle of 30 mechanical angle is predicted. To obtain a smooth waveform for a cycle, it is typical to run around 30 modeling increments, i.e., one model for each degree. This would be easy for 2-D FEA with the function of automatic parameter regulation in the simulator. However, the function is not available to the 3-D process, and each modeling increment will be handled manually.

III. RESULTS A. Qualitative Comparison The resultant cogging torque waveform from the direct superposition of 2-D analyses (without modification factor applied) is shown in Fig. 5(a) for the spindle motor. In comparison with the result using 3-D FEA shown in Fig. 5(b), it can be seen that these two waveforms are very similar in shape but not in magnitude, as expected.

(a)
Fig. 3 3-D flux distribution of the pancake-type spindle motor

By observing the interaction between the rotor and each stator layer with respect to a rotor position, it is found that the two layers behave identically in terms of torque direction and magnitude. This implies the feasibility to produce the overall cogging torque waveforms by directly superposing the individual result of each layer with 2-D analysis. Nevertheless, the effect in the axial direction is omitted, and it is expected that the direct superposition may give good qualitative but not quantitative results. As shown in Fig. 4, although the 2-D case takes the thickness into account, the flux does not flow in the axial direction. In contrast, the actual case has the shaft and the rotor back iron as its axial flux passage. Therefore, a

(b)

Fig. 5 Results from (a) 2-D superposition and (b) 3-D FEA (spindle motor)

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The analysis for the fan motor is shown in Fig. 6, again the two methods agree well with each other qualitatively. This demonstrates that the proposed approach should be sufficient for qualitative prediction without modification.

Fig. 6 Comparison between 2-D superposition and 3-D FEA for fan motor

B. Quantitative Modification For quantitative accuracy, modification is made according to two extra 3-D simulations. From the waveform obtained by 2-D superposition shown in Fig. 5(a), a point on the negative slope except the zero-torque one is first selected to perform a 3-D FEA so that a cogging torque is obtained. A modification factor 0.25 is determined as the ratio of this cogging torque to that from the 2-D superposition at the same angular position. Secondly, every point on the curve in Fig. 5(a) is multiplied by the factor 0.25 to produce a new cogging torque waveform, which is compared with the 3-D FEA, as shown in Fig. 7(a). Repeating the process for the positive slope, another factor 0.18 is thus computed. Again the comparison is presented in Fig. 7(b). Apparently, the two comparisons shown in Fig. 7(a) and (b) both present that the two waveforms on one slope match better than that on the other slope. Finally, taking the average of these two factors, the overall modification factor 0.215 is determined. The final predicted cogging torque waveform and its comparison with the 3D case are presented in Fig. 8, where both waveforms agree well. The result for the fan motor is not presented IV. CONCLUSION An efficient and fast simplified approach named "2-D Plus" has been successfully developed for analysis of pancake-type motors and those of similar configurations with threedimensional flux distributions for a reduction in simulation time. Without the aid of any 3-D simulations, the method with direct 2-D superposition is capable of predicting qualitative information such as the cycle and trend of the cogging torque. Quantitatively, two extra 3D models are employed for calculation of modification factors to obtain sufficiently accurate waveforms. Therefore, the proposed "2-D Plus" method is time efficient and useful in further relevant research such as cogging torque reduction using salient pole or magnet shaping. To sum up, significant time can be saved for analyses where a large number of models need to be run.

Fig. 7 Comparing 3D result to 2D results with modification factor (a) 0.25 and (b) 0.18

Fig. 8 Result comparison for 3D and 2D with overall modification factor

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The support of Sunonwealth Electric Machine Industry Co., Ltd. on this research is highly acknowledged. REFERENCES
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