Design of Electric Machines Operating in Heavy Saturation using a Hybrid Magnetostatic Method of Moments

In this research, a method-of-moments-based model has been established and structured to enable rapid evaluation of the electromagnetic performance of V-shaped interior permanent magnet machines. Contributions to the model formulation include the use of a judicious combination of linear and nonlinear elements to evaluate machine behavior under magnetic saturation of stator and rotor steels. Also included is a straightforward means to include multiple operating points with minimal additional computational expense. The proposed approach has been validated using commercial finite-element-based software. Subsequently, it has been applied in the design optimization of a vehicular propulsion drive, where six operating points are specified. It is shown that the resulting model enables a rigorous search of the design space that includes material selection, machine geometry, winding layout, and stator excitation at each operating point.