Koen De Langhe
Simulation Division, SIEMENS PLM Software

Abstract

The production of electric motors in a massive global scale imposes restriction on the type of electric machines that can be used, considerably limiting the use of permanent magnet in the machine design. This constrain arises due to the high pressure on some natural resources, i.e. rare-earth materials, by the production line. The alternative is to make use of machine designs that are magnet-less, such as switched reluctance motors (SRM), synchronous reluctance motors (SynRM), etc. One of the main issues associated with these reluctance machines is the poor NVH behavior. The overall vibro-acoustic behavior of the machine can be very inconvenient for the users, e.g. in automotive applications, and this issue needs to be properly addressed early in the motor design phase. At Siemens Industry Software NV there are large efforts being allocated in the development of tools and procedures to be able to model and predict those acoustics emission in the initial stages of the motor design by making use of multiphysical simulation. These capabilities developed by company take into account controller aspects (input of current waveform), electromagnetic forces acting upon the rotor and stator (calculated by making use of JMAG software), structural dynamics and vibro-acoustic emissions. Besides demonstrating all those modeling and prediction capabilities this paper also focus on the how that physical insight can be used to better design RMs in order to minimize its acoustic emission and maximize the user comfort.