2070 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 46, NO.

6, JUNE 2010

Design of High Power Permanent Magnet Motor With Segment Rectangular

Copper Wire and Closed Slot Opening on Electric Vehicles
Jae-Hak Choi1 , Yon-Do Chun1 , Pil-Wan Han1;2 , Mi-Jung Kim1;2 , Dae-Hyun Koo1 , Ju Lee2 , and Jang-Sung Chun3
Electric Motor Research Center, Industry Applications Research Division, Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute,
Changwon, 641-120, Korea
Department of Electrical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, 133-791, Korea
TSA Co., Ltd, Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, 421-808, Korea

Brushless permanent magnet DC motors are being manufactured and used increasingly in everything from home appliances to auto-
mobiles due to their inherent advantages. The merits of these motors could be enhanced further according to another design approach
method which alters the typically used winding parts for low to medium power range motors. This paper deals with the high power
brushless DC motor used for traction in a 48 V golf cart system. The stator is designed with segment rectangular copper winding to
maximize output power within its limited dimensions. In the design process, the closed slot opening and slot-pole combination are inves-
tigated and compared in terms of efficiency and input current density. The developed motor obtained about 120% greater power density
per volume compared to a commercial motor with round winding coils at similar efficiency and variable speed range.
Index Terms—Brushless DC motors, cogging torque, segment magnet wire, slot opening.

I. INTRODUCTION

MID GROWING awareness of global environmental

A problems, the research and development of hybrid elec-
tric vehicles (HEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs) attract much
attention in the automobile industry. Thus, the application of
the brushless permanent magnet DC motor for HEV and EV
automobiles is also on the increase due to its high efficiency,
compactness, fast dynamics and large torque to inertial ratio.
The substantial improvement in the output power of a motor is
still required in the industrial field [1]. There is, however, an
easy way to increase motor volume in order to obtain higher
output power. High space factor rectangular coils (segment
conductors) which create magnetic rotating flux in stators are
not being used as the main component of high power motors in
low and medium power range applications. These rectangular
coils are still being used in large power range motors and in
power transformers.
This paper deals with the high power brushless DC motor
(BLDCM) for the traction of a 48 V golf cart system. As shown
in Fig. 1 the stator is designed with segment rectangular copper
winding to enhance the output power within its limited dimen-
sions. As a result, this could increase the slot fill factor by about
70–75% and reduce the length of end winding which was the
cause of the resistance loss. But a slot fill factor is 40–45% in
conventional motors designed with a round copper wire. It is
possible to increase the slot fill factor by hand, but mass pro-
ductivity has to be considered. In the automobile application
mentioned above, the number of turns per slot of the motor
is restricted within the wide variable speed range and the high
output torque on the condition of the limited dc link voltage in
the inverter.
Manuscript received October 31, 2009; revised January 08, 2010; accepted
January 12, 2010. Current version published May 19, 2010. Corresponding au-
thor: Y.-D. Chun (e-mail: ydchun@keri.re.kr).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2010.2041908
0018-9464/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
Fig. 1. Difference between rectangular and round conductor.
A surface mounted permanent magnet (SPM) motor design is
presented which focuses on motor power density. Multi-slot and
closed slot are used to increases the output torque and to reduce
the cogging torque. The design is accomplished by the SPEED
based on the magnetic equivalent circuit [2]. The detailed re-
view of important design parameters is performed by FEM to
investigate their effect on the motor’s performance.
II. SLOT OPENING
Fig. 1 graphically shows the difference of slot fill factor
and slot structure between rectangular wire and round wire.
Increasing the slot fill factor means that it can reduce iron loss
in the parts of the stator teeth and yoke because of the wide flux
path. In the case of segment rectangular copper wires which are
axially inserted into the slot of the stator as shown in Fig. 2, the
width of the slot opening on the stator could be closed to zero
to reduce cogging torque which causes noise and vibration.
However, the round copper wires are radially inserted
through the slot opening in conventional motors. Therefore, the
slot opening in motors with round copper wires must always be
bigger than the diameter of the round copper wire because of
the insulation used for protection. In slotted permanent motors,
cogging torque is generated due to the interaction between the
CHOI et al.: DESIGN OF HIGH POWER PERMANENT MAGNET MOTOR WITH SEGMENT RECTANGULAR COPPER WIRE
Fig. 2. Winding configuration of segment rectangular copper wire.
Fig. 3. Cogging torque according to the width of slot opening in developed
motor.
Fig. 4. Output torque and efficiency according to the length of slot opening in
developed motor.
rotor magnets and the stator slots. This cogging torque causes
noise and vibration. Hence, research to reduce cogging torque
has been done [3]–[6].
Fig. 3 shows the cogging torque in this model as having seg-
ment rectangular copper wires. From the analysis results, it is
shown that the slot opening dramatically affects the cogging
torque. While the cogging torque could be reduced to zero by
a closed slot opening, the output torque and efficiency is de-
creased as shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 4 shows that a motor with a small slot opening is better
than that with a closed slot opening in terms of torque and effi-
ciency. There is a critical point in the design for the slot opening
2071
Fig. 5. Analyzed slot and pole combination.
TABLE I
DESIGN RESULTS ON SLOT AND POLE COMBINATION
length, the main reason being the leakage of fluxes that flow be-
tween the teeth. The effective linkage fluxes have to go through
the rotor magnet and then produce output torque. It is seen that
the segment rectangular copper motor has to be designed with a
small slot opening no bigger than the width of the copper wire
[7], [8].
III. SLOT AND POLE COMBINATION
This paper also investigated the influence of slot and pole
combination on high torque and efficiency in a segment rectan-
gular copper wire motor. The slot to pole ratio for three phase
motors for minimum cogging torque is considered as men-
tioned in [9], [10], and multi-slots are also adopted to reduce
acoustic noise and vibration. This is due to the distribution of
the magnetic forces concentrated on a few teeth into multi-teeth
[11]–[16].
Fig. 5 shows the slot and pole combinations which are se-
lected from the concept for minimum noise and vibration and
maximum power density. The selected combinations in Fig. 5
show that a number of slots per pole per phase are over two in
cases of motors with a distributed winding pattern.
Table I shows the design results according to the slot and pole
combination. The motor with 24 slots and 4 poles has the highest
efficiency, but its input current is also high. This means that the
2072
Fig. 6. Compared motors. (a) Commercial 1.5 kW round copper motor. (b) De-
veloped 1.0 kW segment copper motor. (c) Commercial 1.0 kW round copper
motor.
Fig. 7. Input current of (a) commercial 1.5 kW round copper motor. (b) Devel-
oped 1.0 kW segment copper motor.
inverter has to use a high capacity current switching module,
and the system price will be higher.
However, the motor with 36 slots and 6 poles has proper per-
formance for the current level, current density and efficiency at
the same dimension. This motor is well considered regarding its
operating speed, switching frequency, number of poles, winding
pattern and inverter’s capacity on variable speed range. The
motor with 48 slots and 8 poles and the motor with 72 slots
and 12 poles have lower efficiency than the others; because the
copper losses are increased by the large end winding resulting
from the short path, and iron losses are also increased by the
high operating frequency resulting from too many poles in con-
tradiction to the same dimension.
Fig. 6 shows the configuration of the compared motors. The
commercial motors in Fig. 6(a) and (c) are wound by typical
round copper wire. It is seen that the slot opening is bigger than
the diameter of the used wire. Fig. 6(b) represented the segment
rectangular copper wire and the motor with a very small slot
opening. The width of the slot opening is 0.5 mm, and the seg-
ment rectangular wire is 2.8 mm long and 1.5 mm wide.
Fig. 7 shows the input current measured by the dynamometer
system on the rated road. The torque per ampere in the devel-
oped motor is better than that in the commercial motor. This
means that the motor has high power density.
As shown in Table II, the developed motor can obtain about
120% power per volume with similar efficiency and a variable
speed range when compared with commercial motors with
round winding coils. The high power motor could be achieved
using the technology of the segment rectangular copper wire
and analysis of the slot opening.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 46, NO. 6, JUNE 2010
TABLE II
TEST RESULTS AND RELATIVE POWER DENSITY
IV. CONCLUSION
The design process for brushless permanent magnet DC mo-
tors with segment rectangular wires was performed in order
to find the proper slot opening dimension and slot-pole com-
binations necessary to achieve high power density per volume
with similar efficiency. The torque analysis shows that the cog-
ging torque depends mainly on the length of the slot opening,
and that efficiency and output power are decreased by the mag-
netic flux leakage of teeth in the case of motors with a closed
slot opening. This has the opposite effect to the output power.
The cogging torque could be reduced as small as the width of
the slot opening, but the output power is also decreased to a
critical point. The developed motor could obtain about 120%
greater power density per volume compared to commercial mo-
tors by analyzing the slot to pole combinations and the closed
slot opening. The design and experimental verification of rect-
angular copper winding technology applied in motors is also a
very useful outcome in terms of low and medium applications
for other industrial fields.
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