IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 36, NO.
4, JULY 2000
Optimal Core Shape Design for Cogging Torque
Reduction of Brushless DC Motor
Using Genetic Algorithm
Ki-Jin Han, Han-Sam Cho, Dong-Hyeok Cho, and Hyun-Kyo Jung
Abstract—The cogging torque in the small brushless DC
(BLDC) motors used in the digital versatile disk (DVD) driving
system or hard disk drive (HDD) system can cause some serious
vibration problem. In this paper, some core shapes that reduce
cogging torque are found by using reluctance network method
(RNM) for magnetic field analysis and genetic algorithm (GA)
for optimization. The outer rotor type BLDC motor for the DVD
ROM driving system is optimized as a sample model.
Index Terms—BLDC motor, cogging torque, core shape opti-
mization, genetic algorithm, reluctance network method.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE BLDC motor applied to DVD ROM driving system
has to satisfy some specifications such as accurate reading
and fast access to data. For these reasons, accurate positioning
with high speed should be maintained. The vibration due to me-
chanical or electrical exciting force can disturb these require-
ments. Especially, because of the increase of the motor speed
and the application of the high energy permanent magnet, the
exciting force of high frequency due to electromagnetic origin
causes new problems. In this paper, a method to reduce cogging
torque, which is one of the electromagnetic force that vibrate
the mechanical structure of the BLDC motor, is proposed.
Cogging torque arises from the saliency of the slot structure
for winding, and depends on the magnetization pattern of the
permanent magnet and the shape of the core [1]. Thus, to reduce
the cogging torque, the regulation of the magnetization pattern
of permanent magnet [2] or the shape optimization of rotor core
can be performed. Because of the difficulty in manufacturing a
permanent magnet with special magnetization pattern, the core
shape optimization is selected in this paper.
There are some proposed methods for optimization of electro-
mechanical devices [3], [4], but these deal with only the size
optimization or the shape optimization of a simple structure by
using FEM. In this paper, the GA is used as the optimization al-
gorithm, and RNM is used to compute magnetic field problem.
By using the method, the shape optimization to reduce cogging
torque level, which is a complicated and dynamic characteristic
Manuscript received October 25, 1999. This work was supported in part by
the LG Yonam Foundation.
K.-J. Han, D.-H. Cho, and H.-K. Jung are with the School of Electrical Engi-
neering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (e-mail: hankj@chollian.net;
{cdh; hkjung}@snu.ac.kr).
H.-S. Cho was with the Digital Media Lab. of LG Electronics Co. Ltd. He
is now with the School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University,
Seoul, Korea (e-mail: hansam @hanimail.com).
Publisher Item Identifier S 0018-9464(00)07190-9.
0018–9464/00$10.00 © 2000 IEEE
1927
of the motor, can be performed. As constraints of the optimiza-
tion, some criteria of shaping core structures are selected. To
evaluate the analysis and optimization result, core structures are
manufactured and the measurement of cogging torque is per-
formed.
II. RELUCTANCE NETWORK METHOD
RNM is one of the techniques for solving problems related to
magnetic systems. It is based on the same concepts and method-
ology of magnetic equivalent circuit method (MECM). In RNM
magnetic resistance or permeance is computed, and a circuit
analysis as in MECM is performed. But in RNM flux paths are
not assumed before analysis like in MECM. And a reluctance
is generated accurately for more localized region than that of
MECM. In case of the analysis of motor characteristics, RNM
can be more useful and faster method compared with FEM, be-
cause the rotating effect of the rotor can be evaluated very easily
without rebuilding of a structure of the network [2], [5].
RNM is performed as follows. The first step is the division of
a given magnetic system into many reluctance elements. In gen-
eral, each reluctance element includes one node and four reluc-
tances and m.m.f. sources for two directions for 2 dimensional
system [5]. The second step is the evaluation of reluctances and
m.m.f. sources. For various magnetic systems, there are many
kinds of geometric shape in reluctance elements. Hexahedral el-
ement and fan-shape element are the most useful shape of ele-
ments, and the values of each reluctance in these elements can
be obtained analytically [2]. But for general shapes, integration
over the region of reluctance elements has to be performed to
evaluate the value of reluctance [6]. Next step is the formula-
tion of circuit equations and making system matrices. For each
node of element, the KCL of magnetic flux must be satisfied,
i.e.
(1)
where is the flux of each direction for an element.
Therefore the whole matrix equation is obtained as
(2)
where is the permeance matrix, is the magnetic po-
tential vector, and is the m.m.f. source vector. The
final step is just solving a circuit equation. The magnetic poten-
tial values of each element can be obtained from (1). The flux
1928 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 36, NO. 4, JULY 2000

Fig. 2. Model of outer rotor type BLDC motor.

TABLE I
Fig. 1. Basic procedure of the genetic algorithm. SOME SPECIFICATIONS OF THE OUTER ROTOR TYPE BLDC MOTOR

density values (four values for one element) are computed from
magnetic potential values and reluctance values.

III. GENETIC ALGORITHM

GA imitates the natural selection and genetics. The algorithm
consists of three operators—reproduction, crossover, and muta-
tion. Reproduction is a process by which individual strings are
copied according to their fitness. The probability of reproduc-
tion is directly proportional to the fitness of each string. This re-
sembles the natural selection, that is, the survival of the fittest.
Crossover follows the mutation. Members in the pool are mated
at random according to the probability of crossover, and along
each pair of strings an integer position is selected uniformly at
field distribution per 120 degrees is assumed. The rare-earth per-
random on the interval. Then, two new strings are created by ex-
manent magnets are used, and the shape of the magnetization is
changing all characters from position to the end, inclusively.
assumed to be “parabolic,” as presented by S.P. Hong et al. [7].
Using these two operators, GA finds the more fit strings, but
This type of magnetization can be made by exciting currents
with these two operators, GA only finds the local optimum.
in the magnetizing yoke device without outer yoke. To include
To overcome this difficulty, algorithm offers the mutation op-
the parabolic magnetization direction into the analysis, the fol-
erator. This is the random alternation of a string position which
lowing Fourier expansion formula are used.
is also chosen at random. In a binary code, this simply means
changing 1 to 0, or vice versa. By chance, if the upper bit is al-
(3)
ternated, algorithm can escape from the local optimum and finds
the global optimum. Flow of the genetic algorithm is shown in
Fig. 1. Initial populations are generated randomly at the first (4)
stage and checked if they satisfy the constraints. If the con-
straints are satisfied, the value of the objective function—fitness
value—is evaluated. By applying the operators to the current
populations, the next generation of the populations can be ob-
tained. The above procedure is repeated for the new populations
until the terminating condition is reached [3].

IV. COGGING TORQUE COMPUTATION AND SHAPE

OPTIMIZATION
Two-dimensional analysis of an outer rotor type BLDC motor
is performed by using RNM. Fig. 2 shows the model for analysis
and optimization, and Table I shows some specifications of this
model. Because of the structure of 12 poles and 9 slots, the same
HAN et al.: OPTIMAL CORE SHAPE DESIGN FOR COGGING TORQUE REDUCTION OF BRUSHLESS DC MOTOR
Fig. 3. Magnetization pattern of the parabolic magnetization: (a) ideal
parabolic magnetization pattern on a magnet (b) Radial magnetization (c)
Tangential magnetization. These patterns are plotted over a magnet pole, which
has a arc of 30 degrees.
where and are the magnetization of the radial and tan-
gential direction respectively, and and are the outer and
inner radius of the magnet arc. Fig. 3 shows the magnetization
pattern comes from (3) and (4).
The model is divided into reluctance elements. Each element
has radial and tangential components of reluctance, and m.m.f.
value for permanent magnets. The moving effect is realized by
just changing the m.m.f. values of the permanent magnets for
each time step. The permeability of iron materials is assumed to
be constant. As described in Section II, magnetic flux density
distribution can be obtained by solving system matrix equation.
The cogging torque value, the object function of the optimiza-
tion, is obtained from the airgap flux density and the Maxwell
stress tensor method, i.e.
(5)
1929
Fig. 4. Concept of shape optimization.
where
is the cogging torque value at a time step,
is the distance from the center of the circle to
the th element,
and are the radial and tangential flux density of
the th element in the airgap respectively, and
is the area of airgap on the th element.
Fig. 4 shows the basic concept of the shape optimization. The
design variables are the heights of the iron core parts along the
tangential direction. In the field analysis by RNM, the core part
is divided into reluctance elements, and each element has the
material property as air or iron. Thus the height of the iron core
part is converted into the number of iron elements. As these
variables are integer numbers, the codes for genetic operations
can be obtained directly from shape array that indicates the core
shape of a string. If is the number of columns in the region of
shape optimization, the height of each column can be expressed
as integer . Thus a shape array which contains the information
of a core shape is obtained as follows.
(6)
By converting each decimal integers into binary integers and
combining these binary numbers, following genetic code can be
generated.
(7)
If is the number of the population used for the optimization
by using GA, binary codes should be generated, i.e. ,
.
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The optimization procedures are performed with the fol-
lowing three different constraints: 1) No constraints for the core
shape (5 design variables), 2) Rounded core shape (5 design
variables), 3) Core shape with two rectangular grooves (3
design variables). For all cases, the effective flux value through
a tooth must exceed 97% of the case of the basic core shape that
1930 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 36, NO. 4, JULY 2000

(a)

(a)

(b)

(b)

(c)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 5. Basic and optimized core shapes: (a) Basic shape (b) Grooved type (c)
Rounded type (d) Optimal shape without any constraints.

(d)

is shown in Fig. 5. The object function is the maximum value
among the cogging torque values for each time step because the
maximum value of cogging torque means the fluctuation of the
total torque waveform. The average number of generations for
each process is about 130.
Fig. 6. Radial airgap flux density distribution: (a) Basic shape (b) Grooved
type (c) Rounded type (d) Optimal shape without any constraints.
Basic and optimized core shapes are shown in Fig. 5, and the
magnetic flux density distributions in the airgap and cogging
HAN et al.: OPTIMAL CORE SHAPE DESIGN FOR COGGING TORQUE REDUCTION OF BRUSHLESS DC MOTOR
Fig. 7. Cogging torque waveform for each core shape.
TABLE II
MAXIMUM COGGING TORQUE VALUES FOR EACH CORE SHAPES
torque waveforms are shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, respectively.
Table II shows the maximum cogging torque values for each
core shape. The grooved core reduced cogging torque about
64.3% compared with the case of the basic core. The rounded
core and the optimal core have the same core shape exactly,
which reduced cogging torque about 98.46%.
The core structures obtained from the optimization has
been manufactured to measure the cogging torque waveform.
Fig. 8 shows the torque waveform displayed on the torque
meter. These measurement results confirm the usefulness of
analysis and optimization result in spite of the little error in the
waveform and values of the torque.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a shape optimization method is proposed for the
reduction of cogging torque in the BLDC motor. The RNM is
combined with GA in the optimization process. From the anal-
ysis and measurements with the three types of core, it is found
that the cogging torque can be reduced remarkably by the pro-
posed optimization. The optimized or rounded core can be a rec-
1931
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 8. Cogging torque waveform for each core shape (measurement data). A
dimension of each grid is 2 [gf cm] (a) Basic core (b) Grooved core (c) Rounded
(Optimal) core.
ommended core shape of the outer rotor type BLDC motor for
DVD ROM driving system to achieve small cogging torque.
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