Sustainable Design Optimization of Permanent Magnet Assisted Synchronous Reluctance Machines

The reduction of carbon emissions represents a key challenge when designing electrical machines for traction applications, since the environmental impact when producing the materials for electrical machines has to be taken into account. It follows that the trade-off between electromagnetic performance in terms of power or torque density, efficiency over the electric vehicle driving cycle, and CO2 emissions related to the machine material production needs to be identified using a systematic design procedure. This paper first proposes a fast design methodology for a permanent magnet-assisted synchronous reluctance machine capable of predicting the machine's performance regardless of the operating condition. Then the method is embedded within a systematic design optimization routine targeting the maximization of both overload torque and driving cycle efficiency and the minimization of the equivalent CO2 necessary to produce the machine materials. The results are finally used to infer some design guidelines and to evaluate the effect of including the environmental aspect within the design optimization.