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SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER An in-wheel

traction
Comparison of flux-switching application
machines and permanent magnet
153
synchronous machines in an
in-wheel traction application
Yang Tang, Emilia Motoasca, Johannes J.H. Paulides and
Elena A. Lomonova
Electromechanics and Power Electronics Group,
Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Abstract
Purpose – This paper is aimed at investigating the potential advantages of flux-switching machines
(FSM) compared to permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSM), particularly for the
applications of electric vehicle traction.
Design/methodology/approach – A 12-slot 14-pole PMSM designed for an in-wheel traction
application is chosen for the comparison. With the same volume constraint, three 12/14 FSM structures
are created. Both the PMSM and the three FSM structures are modeled using the software Flux. Based
on these models, finite element analyses (FEA) are performed, and the results are compared in terms of
open-circuit back electromotive force (EMF), electrical loading capability, and thermal conditions.
Findings – Within the same volume constraint, a 12/14 FSMs can achieve the maximum torque
higher than the one of 12/14 PMSM. This conclusion is drawn based on the observed facts that at
the same rotor speed, a larger open-circuit back EMF is induced in the FSM, while a larger electrical
loading is also allowed in this machine, compared to the PMSM. In addition, the risk of
demagnetization during the process of field weakening proves to be lower in FSMs than PMSMs. This
advantage suggests a potentially wide constant power speed range (CPSR) of FSMs, which is
especially beneficial in automotive applications.
Research limitations/implications – This research can be continued with investigating the field
weakening capability and iron losses of FSMs.
Originality/value – This paper proposed two optional structures of FSMs to reduce the amount of
permanent magnets. It also highlighted the effectiveness of FSMs in cooling these magnets.
Keywords Permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM), Flux-switching machine (FSM),
Inwheel motor, Torque, Automotive industry
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Nowadays, system designers of electric or hybrid vehicles are increasingly tending to
adopt wheel hub or in-wheel traction motors, i.e. to put electric motors aside or inside
COMPEL: The International Journal
the vehicle wheels (Ehsani et al., 2007). By this means, the mechanical axes can be for Computation and Mathematics in
removed to reduce the total weight of the vehicle and enlarge the cargo space. However, Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Vol. 32 No. 1, 2013
due to absence of gearboxes, the chosen electric motors should be able to provide both pp. 153-165
a large traction torque at low speed and a wide constant power speed range (CPSR) q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0332-1649
(Zhu and Howe, 2007). This requirement cannot be achieved by simply increasing the DOI 10.1108/03321641311293803
COMPEL motor volume, as the volume is strictly constrained by the wheel space. The tradeoff
32,1 between torque density and CPSR makes it a challenge to find a suitable type of motor
for these applications (Ehsani et al., 2007).
Permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs) (Figure 1(a)) have proven to be
strong candidates because of their inherent high torque density and high efficiency
compared to other conventional types of electric motors, e.g. induction machines (IMs)
154 and switched reluctance machines (SRMs) (Ehsani et al., 2007; Ilhan et al., 2010a, b). But,
as in PMSMs the permanent magnets are placed on the rotor and radially magnetized,
they can be demagnetized by the armature reaction field, especially when the rotor
temperature rises. This risk limits the electrical loading and field weakening capability,
or in other words, the torque density and the CPSR of PMSMs (Zhu and Howe, 2007;
Lomonova et al., 2011; Hua et al., 2005).
Flux-switching machines (FSM) can improve the situation of permanent magnets
by moving them to the stator. In these machines, the permanent magnets are inserted
between the U-shaped iron segments on the stator and circumferentially magnetized
(Figure 1(b)). Hence, they are magnetically in parallel with the armature winding coils
and can hardly be demagnetized by the armature reaction field (Zhu and Howe, 2007;
Chen et al., 2010). They can also be effectively cooled from the stator outer surface since
they are placed on the stator. On the other hand, a rotor without permanent magnets
as in FSMs is more robust and thus suits high-speed operation better than a rotor
with them as in PMSMs (Zhu and Howe, 2007). These improvements
suggest that FSMs can achieve both a higher torque density and a wider CPSR than
PMSMs.
In this paper, a case of in-wheel traction for a series hybrid truck is studied, in which
the performances of PSMs and FSMs are compared. A 12-slot 14-pole PMSM with
concentrated windings is chosen for the comparison. With the same volume constraint,
three 12/14 FSM structures are created. Both the PMSM and the three FSM structures are
modeled using the software Flux, as presented in Section 2. Based on these models, the
finite element analyses (FEA) are performed and the results are compared in Sections 3
and 4, in terms of back electromotive force (EMF), electrical loading capability, and
thermal conditions. In Section 5, the advantages of FSMs in in-wheel traction
applications are summarized.

Figure 1.
Transversal cross section
of (a) PMSM and (b) FSM
(a) PMSM (b) FSM
2. 2-D Finite element models An in-wheel
In Table I, the geometry data of a 12-slot 14-pole PMSM designed as an in-wheel motor of traction
a series hybrid truck is presented. Based on these data, a 2-D finite element model (FEM)
of this machine is built using the software Flux, as Figure 2(a) shows. The permanent application
magnet material is evaluated with a remanent flux density Br ¼ 1.058 T and a relative
permeability of mr ¼ 1.05. The ferromagnetic material used as back iron and iron core of
both the rotor and the stator is assumed to be nonlinear, with a B-H curve shown in 155
Figure 2(b). Due to the symmetry, only half of the machine needs to be modeled.
A flux-switching machine referred as FSM1 is modeled afterwards with the same
slot number, stator outer diameter and stack length as the ones of the PMSM, as shown
in Figure 3. The rotor tooth number of FSM1 is the same as the pole number of the
PMSM. On the inner surface of FSM1’s stator, all the magnets, the slot openings, and
the teeth of U-shaped iron segments have equal widths. The rotor teeth also have the
same spans on their tips as the slot openings.
The total volumes of permanent magnets used in both models of PMSM and FSM1
are calculated and presented in Table II. It can be seen that the volume in FSM1 is
3.06 £ 106 mm3, which is almost four times larger than 7.93 £ 105 mm3, the volume in
the PMSM model. The relatively larger consumption of magnets in FSM1 can be a
disadvantage for manufacturers due to the high price of this material. Therefore,
another two structures of the FSM are proposed, called FSM2 and FSM3, respectively,

Description Value Unit

Stator outer diameter 480.6 mm

Stator back iron height 21.3 mm
Stator slot depth 42.5 mm
Stack length 120 mm
Rotor outer diameter 351 mm Table I.
Air gap 1 mm The geometry and
Magnet height 8.5 mm winding data of
Rotor back iron height 27.7 mm a PM in-wheel motor

2.0

1.5
B (Tesla)

1.0

0.5

0
0 2 4 6 8
H (×104 A/m)
(a) (b)
Figure 2.
Notes: (a) Half cross section of the 12/14 PMSM; (b) B-H characteristics of the non-linear 2-D FEM of half of the
12-slot 14-pole PMSM
back iron
COMPEL as seen in Figure 4. In both models the magnet pitches are intentionally shortened to
32,1 obtain a magnet volume comparable to the one in the PMSM.
The difference between these two structures is in the arrangement of the magnets
on the stator. FSM2 simply narrows the magnets and proportionally widens the slots
and stator and rotor teeth, while FSM3 keeps the geometry of FSM1 by sandwiching an
iron segment between two sheet permanent magnets.
156 More geometric details of these three FSM structures that are different from the
PMSM can be found in Table II.
Transient magnetic and steady-state thermal FEA are performed with all these
models, and the results of flux linkage, back EMF, and thermal conditions are
compared in the following sections.

3. Flux linkage and back EMF

When an electric machine runs in motoring mode, regardless the losses, the power (P)
transformed from electric form to mechanic form can be ideally calculated as the

Figure 3.
2-D FEM of half of
FSM1 (12/14)

Parameter Symbol Value Unit

Motor type – PMSM FSM1 FSM2 FSM3 –

Stator back iron height hsi 21.3 21.3 21.3 15 mm
Stator slot depth hs 42.5 60 59 60 mm
Table II. Rotor outer diameter DRO 351 316 318 328.6 mm
Geometry comparison of Total volume of PM VPM 7.93 30.6 6.46 6.25 £ 105 mm3
the machines Slot cross-section area SSlot 1.75 1.93 2.45 1.90 £ 103 mm2

Figure 4.
2-D FEMs of half of
(a) FSM2 with narrowed
PMs and (b) FSM3 with
iron segments sandwiched
between sheet PMs
(a) FSM2 (b) FSM3
product of the back EMF (E) and the armature current (i ) or the product of the torque An in-wheel
(T ) generated on the rotor and the angular velocity of the rotor (v), i.e.: traction
P ¼ Ei ¼ T v ð1Þ application

This is the reason why a large back EMF usually results in a high torque at a given
rotor speed and a given armature current of a machine. 157
With a same rotor speed of 800 rpm, the back EMF waveforms of the four models
are compared. All models are simulated under the open-circuit condition, where the
armature current is set to zero since it hardly influence the back EMF. As the back
EMF results from the variation of the magnetic flux linked by the coils, the flux
linkages of the models are first observed.
Figure 5 shows the simulation results of one-period variation of the magnetic flux
linked by Phase-A coils in the models of PMSM and FSM1.
Since the waveforms of flux linkages in both models are fairly sinusoidal, two
parameters are particularly interesting for the comparison: the magnitude and the
frequency. This can be explained by equation (2):
dc dðC sinð2pft þ uÞÞ
E¼ ¼ ¼ 2pf C cosð2pft þ uÞ ð2Þ
dx dt
in which: E is the back EMF, c is the time-varying flux linkage, C is the magnitude of
the flux linkage, and f is the frequency of the flux linkage.
As the back EMF is the derivative of the flux linkage to time, the magnitude of the
back EMF is proportional to the product of the magnitude and the frequency of the flux
linkage.
It can be seen in Figure 5 that the magnitude of the flux linkage in the PMSM is
1.8 times larger than that in the FSM. This difference results from the fact that: in
FSMs the flux only travels through approximately a third of the coil span area, as
shown in Figure 6(b). But, taking advantage of the flux concentrating effect, the flux
density in this area is relatively high, as shown in Figure 7(b), which compensates the
reduction of flux-traveling area for the total flux linkage.

0.2
0.3
Flux Linkage (weber)
Flux Linkage (weber)

0.2 0.1
0.1
0 0
–0.1
–0.1
–0.2
–0.3
–0.2 Figure 5.
5 10 1 2 3 4 5 Flux linkages of a phase
coils in (a) PMSM and
Time (ms) Time (ms)
(b) FSM1
(a) (b)
COMPEL
32,1

158

(a) PMSM

Figure 6.
Variation of open-circuit
flux distribution in
(a) PMSM and (b) FSM1
(b) FSMI

Figure 7.
Color map of flux-density
distribution in a quarter of
the cross section of
(a) PMSM and (b) FSM1
(a) (b)

On the other hand, the frequency of flux variation in FSM1 is twice of that in the
PMSM. This can be explained by the fact that in FSMs an electrical period is
accomplished when a rotor tooth travels to its neighbor’s position, while in PMSMs the
same traveled distance is only half the period (Figure 6) (Chen and Zhu, 2010).
This relatively high frequency could greatly enhance the magnitude of the back
EMF in FSM1, which is proved by the results in Figure 8. Although in the FSM1 the
maximum flux linkage is smaller, the magnitude of the back EMF is still 11.1 percent
larger than in the PMSM.
 500
An in-wheel
traction
250 application
Back EMF (V)

Back EMF (V)

0 0
159
–250

–500 Figure 8.
5 10 1 2 3 4 5 Back EMF (rms/phase) of
Time (ms) Time (ms) (a) PMSM, (b) FSM1 at
800 rpm rotor speed
(a) (b)

Similar results are obtained with the models of FSM2 and FSM3, as seen in
Figures 9 and 10, respectively. In both models, the magnitudes of flux linkage are
similar, so are the magnitudes of the back EMF. The reason is that in both cases the
actual flux-linkage area of a coil span is enlarged either by shortening the magnet
width as in FSM2 or by increasing the outer rotor diameter as in FSM3. The
root-mean-square (rms) values of the flux linkage and the back EMF in each machine
are compared in Table III.
It is also noticed that the waveforms of flux linkage and back EMF for FSM2 are
less sinusoidal or symmetric than for FSM1. This is partly because of the imbalance

Figure 9.
Flux distribution and
density of (a) FSM2 and
(b) FSM3
(a) (b)
COMPEL
32,1

160

Figure 10.
Flux linkage and back
EMF of (a) FSM2 and
(b) FSM3
(a) (b)

Machine type Flux linkage (rms, Weber) Back EMF (rms, V)

Table III.
Comparison of flux PMSM 0.259 305.5
linkage and back EMF FSM1 0.157 371.6
in different machine FSM2 0.181 429.0
structures FSM3 0.182 430.9

between the widths of magnets and slots on the stator of FSM2. In FSM3, the magnet
width on the inner surface equals to the slot opening width, thus the waveforms for this
model look more similar to those of FSM1.

4. Electrical loading capability

From equation (1) it can also be deduced that in an electric machine, the torque is also
limited by the maximum armature current, or in other words, the electrical loading
capability. The armature current per slot can be calculated as the product of the
cross-section area of a slot and the current density. Thus, to compare this electrical
loading capability, the first parameter to be analyzed is the slot cross-section area of
each machine: it is larger in FSM1 than that in the PMSM, as seen in Table II. This
result means that FSM1 can allow a higher current loading than the PMSM with a
given current density limit. But, for a complete evaluation of this capability, the limits
of current density in the relevant machines also need to be compared.
In an electric machine, the current density is mainly limited by the thermal
conditions, because a large current density would cause a high copper loss and
therefore a sharp increase in the temperature inside the machine. As one of the worst
consequences, the temperature increase could damage the permanent magnets because
they become very easy to get demagnetized at a high temperature.
Cooling systems, e.g. a water jacket, can suppress the temperature rise to some
extent. They are mostly applied on the outer surface of stators and therefore are
especially effective for cooling the permanent magnets of FSMs, in which the An in-wheel
permanent magnets are on the stator. traction
To illustrate these characteristics, 2-D FEA are performed with thermal models of
the PMSM and the FSM, as shown in Figure 11. application
The effective thermal conductivities of different layers are chosen as in Table IV,
and the insulation material between the coils and the slots is also considered. Zero
circumferential heat flux boundary condition is applied to the bottom boundary of 161
these semicircular models, assuming that the heat flow is only in the radial direction on
this straight boundary due to the symmetry of the models. On the outer surface, forced
water convection is implemented with a convection coefficient of 300 W/m2K and a
temperature of 208C.
For simplification, in both thermal models only the copper losses are assumed to be
responsible for the temperature rise, thus only the coil regions in the slots are
considered as the heat sources. The copper losses can be calculated as:


L
P copper ¼ I 2 R ¼ ð J · SÞ2 r ¼ ð J rLÞ · S ð3Þ
S
in which: I is the current, R is the coil resistance, J is the current density, S is the
cross-section area of a slot, r is the resistivity of coil material, and L is the average
length of the coils in each slot.
The resistivity and the average length of coils are assumed the same in both
machines, thus at the same current density, the copper loss in each machine is
approximately proportional to the cross-section area of the stator slot of this machine.
Based on this assumption, the heat flow of each slot is set to 200 W in the PMSM model

Figure 11.
2-D thermal FEMs of half
of (a) PMSM and (b) FSM1
(a) (b)

Material Thermal conductivities (W/mK)

Coil 4 Table IV.

Iron 68 Thermal conductivities of
PM 9 materials in the
Insulation 0.4 considered electric
Air 0.027 machines
COMPEL and 220 W in the FSM model, as the slot cross-section area of the FSM is 10 percent
32,1 larger than that of the PMSM (Table II).
Simulation results for the two models are shown in Figure 12. It can be seen that in
the permanent magnet regions of the PMSM model, the temperature of about 748C-758C
is uniformly distributed, while the temperature of the permanent magnets in FSM1
shows considerable variation from 838C-858C of the inner surface to 578C-588C of the
162 outer surface.
However, the magnets in the FSM are circumferentially magnetized, thus the
part inside the circle of the slot bottom, denoted as the “Safe part” in Figure 13,
are magnetically in parallel with the armature reaction field. This part is unlikely to be

U-shaped
Stator back iron
steel segment
Stator tooth Airgap Permanent
Airgap Permanent Coil magnet
Magnet
Coil

Rotor back iron

Figure 12.
Salient
Color maps of temperature rotor
in (a) PMSM and (b) FSM1
(a) (b)

Figure 13.
Flux of armature reaction
field in FSM1
demagnetized even at a high temperature. The only area where demagnetization An in-wheel
may happen is near the outer surface, denoted as the “Risky part” in Figure 13. So, it is traction
more reasonable to compare the temperature of this area with that of the magnets in
the PMSM. Apparently, the FSM1 model shows a considerably better thermal application
condition on its risky part of magnets, thus a higher current density could be allowed
in FSM1.
Integrating this conclusion with the comparison result of slot cross-section 163
areas, FSM1 has proved to have a higher electrical loading capability than the
PMSM. Similar results are also obtained in the models of FSM2 and FSM3. The
limits of copper loss per slot of the four machine models are compared, which
guarantee the temperature will not exceed 758C on the risky part of the
permanent magnets. Relatively, the current limits per slot are further estimated with
the equation:
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
P copper
I¼ ð4Þ
R

derived from equation (3), in which the resistance per slot R is assumed to be 0.005V in
the PMSM model, and relatively smaller due to the larger slot cross-section areas in the
three FSM models. The results are presented in Table V.

5. Discussion and conclusions

As presented in Section 3, at the same rotor speed, higher back EMFs are induced in
the considered FSMs than in the PMSM. Furthermore, in Section 4 a larger electrical
loading capability of these FSMs compared to that of the PMSM is proved. According
to the relation explained at the beginning of both Sections 3 and 4, it can be concluded
that with the same volume these three FSMs can generate a larger maximum torque
than the PMSM.
However, the high back EMF induced in FSMs limits their base speeds, thus for
the automotive applications, field weakening is required to extend the speed
range. Fortunately, taking advantage of a low risk in demagnetization of permanent
magnets, it is also believed that FSMs have a better field weakening capability than
PMSMs. Therefore, they are highly recommended for the application of in-wheel
traction.
Research of FSMs is to be continued in torque calculation, field weakening
implementation, and iron loss estimation, which will eventually lead to a complete
methodology for designing and optimizing this type of machines.

Copper loss Current limit

Model (per slot, W) (per slot, A)

PMSM 200 200 Table V.

FSM1 240 230 Comparison of the limits
FSM2 230 254 of copper loss and current
FSM3 240 228 per slot
COMPEL References
32,1 Chen, A., Nilssen, R. and Nysveen, A. (2010), “Investigation of a three-phase flux-switching
permanent magnet machine for downhole applications”, Proceedings XIX International
Conference on Electrical Machines – ICEM 2010, Rome.
Chen, J.T. and Zhu, Z.Q. (2010), “Winding configurations and optimal stator and rotor pole
combination of flux-switching PM brushless AC machines”, IEEE Transaction on Energy
164 Conversion, Vol. 25 No. 2.
Ehsani, M., Gao, Y. and Miller, J.M. (2007), “Hybrid electric vehicle: architecture and motor
drives”, Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 95 No. 4.
Hua, W., Zhu, Z.Q., Cheng, M., Pang, Y. and Howe, D. (2005), “Comparison of flux-switching and
doubly-salient permanent magnet brushless machines”, Proceedings of the Eighth
International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems, ICEMS 2005, Nanjing,
China, Vol. 1, pp. 165-70.
Ilhan, E., Paulides, J.J.H. and Lomonova, E.A. (2010a), “Fast torque estimation of in-wheel parallel flux
switching machines for hybrid trucks”, Journal of Electrical Engineering, Vol. 10 No. 3,
pp. 175-82.
Ilhan, E., Gysen, B.L.J., Paulides, J.J.H. and Lomonova, E.A. (2010b), “Analytical hybrid model for
flux switching permanent magnet machines”, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. 46
No. 6, pp. 1762-5.
Lomonova, E.A., Kazmin, E., Tang, Y. and Paulides, J.J.H. (2011), “In-wheel PM motor:
compromise between high power density and extended speed capability”, COMPEL: The
International Journal for Computation and Mathematics in Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 98-116.
Zhu, Z.Q. and Howe, D. (2007), “Electrical machines and drives for electric, hybrid, and fuel cell
vehicles”, Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 95 No. 4.

Further reading
Gysen, B.L.J., Ilhan, E., Meessen, K.J., Paulides, J.J.H. and Lomonova, E.A. (2010), “Modeling of
flux switching permanent magnet machines with Fourier analysis”, IEEE Transactions on
Magnetics, Vol. 46 No. 6, pp. 1499-502.
Ilhan, E., Motoasca, T.E., Paulides, J.J.H. and Lomonova, E.A. (2011), “Conformal mapping:
Schwarz-Christoffel method for flux switching PM machines”, Proceedings of
Computational Magnetics, COMPUMAG 2011, Sydney, Australia, 12-15 July, pp. 1-4.
Pollock, C., Pollock, H., Barron, R., Sutton, R., Coles, J., Moule, D. and Court, A. (2006), “Flux-switching
motors for automotive applications”, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 42 No. 5.
Tang, Y., Paulides, J.J.H., Kazmin, E. and Lomonova, E.A. (2010), “Investigation of winding for
permanent magnet in-wheel motors”, Proceedings Ecological Vehicles and Renewable
Energies, EVER 2010, Monaco, 25-28 March.

About the authors

Yang Tang was born in Changsha, China in 1984. He received the BSc and
MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering from Zhejiang University, China in
2003 and 2006, respectively. Since 2007, he has been working at Eindhoven
University of Technology (TU/e), The Netherlands as a Researcher. In 2009, he
received a Diploma of Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng). Currently,
he is working towards the PhD degree in the Electromechanics and Power
Electronics (EPE) Group. His research activities are focused on pre-biased variable field electrical An in-wheel
machines. Yang Tang is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: Y.Tang1@tue.nl
traction
Emilia Motoasca was born in Brasov, Romania in 1971. She received her MSc application
and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the “Transilvania” University of
Brasov, Romania, in 1996 and Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands,
in 2003, respectively. Currently, she works as an Assistant Professor with the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, in
165
The Netherlands. Her research interests include numerical and analytical
methods for electromagnetic field calculations in electromagnetic devices,
electrodynamics of deformable solids, medical applications of (micro) sensors and actuators, and
energy harvesting.

Johannes J.H. Paulides was born in Waalwijk, The Netherlands in 1976. He

received the BEng degree from the Technische Hogeschools-Hertogenbosch in
1998 and the MPhil and PhD degrees in Electrical and Electronical Engineering
from the University of Sheffield in 2000 and 2005, respectively. From 2005 to
2009, he was a Research Associate at Eindhoven University of Technology,
The Netherlands. Currently, he holds an Assistant Professor position within the
Electromechanics and Power Electronics Group working on more electrical
sustainable society drive systems. He is also a Technical and Program Committee Member of the
IEEE International Magnetics (INTERMAG) Conference, where he is an Editor of the IEEE
Transactions of Magnetics (conference edition). His research activities span all facets of electrical
machines, however, in particular permanent magnet excited machines for “more electric”
applications.

Elena A. Lomonova (M’04-SM’07-F’10) was born in Moscow, Russia. She received

the MSc (cum laude) and PhD (cum laude) degrees in Electromechanical
Engineering from the Moscow State Aviation Institute, in 1982 and 1993,
respectively. She is currently a Professor with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
She has worked on electromechanical actuator design, optimization, and the
development of advanced mechatronics systems.

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