This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TMAG.2016.2524027, IEEE
Transactions on Magnetics
GJ-03 1

A Novel Dual Three-Phase Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor

with Asymmetric Stator Winding
Y. Demir1, and M. Aydin1,2, Fellow, IEEE
1
R&D Department, MDS Motor Design Ltd., Kocaeli, 41275, Turkey
2
Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, 41380, Turkey
Although three-phase PM motors are dominant in industry, multi-phase PM synchronous motors present higher torque-to-weight
ratios, better efficiency and low torque ripple compared to 3-phase conventional PM motors. These features make fault tolerant multi-
phase PM motors become attractive for safety-critical applications. In this study, a novel PM multi-phase motor design with dual
three-phase asymmetric stator winding is proposed. The winding structure of the proposed motor is unconventional due to selected
slot-pole combinations. Therefore, an asymmetric winding is needed. Detailed finite element analyses of the proposed motor and
performance comparison between conventional integer-slot (72-slot/12-pole motor) with symmetric winding and unconventional
fractional-slot (78-slot/12-pole motor) PM motors with asymmetric windings is performed to see the benefits of the proposed motor. It
was shown that the novel unconventional multi-phase PM motor has excellent torque quality and slightly higher torque density levels.
Index Terms— Dual three-phase motor, multiphase PM motor, asymmetric stator winding, permanent magnet machine,
synchronous motor, unbalanced winding.
I. INTRODUCTION phase motor with asymmetric winding and an unconventional

A FTER the development of the fault-tolerant permanent

magnet (PM) motor drives, a growing interest has been
shown to multi-phase (phase number greater than 3)
permanent magnet machines in special applications. Although
three-phase motors have a broad market in industry, multi-
phase permanent magnet synchronous machines offers higher
torque-to-weight ratios and power densities and better
efficiency compared to 3-phase PM motors. Moreover,
increasing the phase number by keeping the input voltage and
power the same decreases the per-phase current. Thus, it helps
to reduce the thermal stresses on power devices and provides
the employment of smaller converters. Most importantly,
reliability and redundancy are the key features for multi-phase
machines with multiples of three so that the machine can
continue to operate even with one or more un-healthy stator
winding sets [1]. These features make fault tolerant multi-
phase PM motors become more attractive for safety-critical
applications such as space, traction, military and etc.
There are numerous studies reported in the literature
describing different multi-phase machine topologies, modeling
and design methods, and control techniques [2]-[5]. Dual 3-
phase or 6-phase machines, which are also called double star
or split-wound machines, with either 30 or 60 degree phase
shift between the winding sets are one of the prominent
studies [3], [6]. All of the motor types above have similar
advantages of multi-phase machines clarified before and can
be supplied by two separate 3-phase converters with reduced
ratings. However, all of the multi-phase permanent magnet
motors covered in the literature have been studied with either
integer or fractional slot combinations with perfectly
symmetric windings sets. Neither asymmetric winding sets nor
unconventional slot numbers are employed in earlier work.
In this study, a novel multi-phase PM motor design with
dual three-phase asymmetric stator winding is proposed. The
main feature of this novel motor is the combination of multi-
Corresponding author: M. Aydin (e-mail: metin.aydin@kocaeli.edu.tr).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier (inserted by IEEE).
stator slot number, which has not covered in the literature
before. The proposed novel multi-phase motor has very small
cogging torque component by nature. It is possible to obtain
sinusoidal back-EMF with low THD. In addition, the new
motor has lower torque ripple and higher torque density
compared to its conventional counterparts with similar ratings.
This paper investigates the design of new multi-phase PM
motor with structurally asymmetric stator windings with an
unconventional stator slot-pole combination. First, PM motor
characteristics are described and motor torque equations for
two separate 3-phase winding sets and motor design details are
given. Second, motor winding design is provided with the
features of asymmetric windings and its asymmetry levels.
Then, a series of FEA based optimization is performed in
order to attain low cogging torque, torque ripple and low total
harmonic distortion (THD) levels. Performance results of the
proposed PM motor obtained by 2D FEA are also illustrated.
Finally, performance comparison of previously built
symmetric and proposed asymmetric multi-phase PM motors
with dual 3-phase AC windings are also covered in the paper.
II. MOTOR DESIGN WITH DUAL THREE-PHASE ASYMMETRIC
STATOR WINDING
In this paper, design of a novel multi-phase PM motor with
dual three-phase asymmetric stator winding is performed. In
order to obtain a good motor performance, unconventional
number of stator slots (Fig. 1 (b)) is proposed for the high
power multi-phase PM motor. The winding structure of the
motor is also unconventional since selected slot-pole
combination does not allow to create a balanced/symetric
winding. Fig. 1 shows 1/6 of the conventional (72-slot and 12-
pole) and unconventional (78-slot and 12-pole) dual 3-phase
motor structures. Although it is not possible to produce a
balanced winding system in Fig. 1 (b) the motor has many
advantages such as low cogging torque levels, sinusoidal
back-EMF waveforms and low torque ripple component by
nature. Fig. 2 shows the MMF distributions of both motor
structures. The THD level of MMF harmonics for
conventional 72-slot motor is 27.3% as for the unconventional

0018-9464 © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information. (Inserted by IEEE.)
0018-9464 (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TMAG.2016.2524027, IEEE
Transactions on Magnetics
GJ-03 2

12-slot 13-slot
3 p
T2 
2 2
  
d 2 iq2  Ld 2  Lq2 iq2 id 2  (4)

Taking the required rated torque and speed into account for
the motor, the initial dimensions of the machine can be
obtained for the selected slot-pole combination. The main
parameters and specifications of the multi-phase PM motor are
magnets
also summarized in Table I.
stator TABLE I
lamination MAIN PARAMETERS AND SPECIFICATIONS OF NEW MULTI-PHASE PM MOTOR
(a) (b)
Fig. 1. Conventional 6-phase (or dual 3-phase) motor with 1 slot/pole/phase Rated torque 113 Nm Slot Number 78
(a) and proposed unconventional 6-phase motor with 1.083 slot/pole/phase Rated speed 2000 rpm Slots/pole/phase 1.083
(1/6 periodicity is used) Rated voltage 48 V Stator OD 240 mm
Rated current 50 Arms Magnet type NdFeB
Pole number 12 Lamination type M19 Steel
Number of phases 6 Cooling medium 45oC Water
MMF [1A.Turns]

B. Motor Winding Design

72-slot 12-pole
Slot-pole combination of a 3-phase motor specifies the
stator winding structure, and there has to be a phase difference
of 120 electrical degrees between phases. However, some slot-
78-slot 12-pole pole combinations do not provide symmetric three-phase
Fig. 2. Magneto-motive force (MMF) distributions of both motors windings, and utilizing an asymmetric winding becomes
B1 q1 B1 q inevitable. Therefore, asymmetric winding does not allow to
q2 d2 A2 A2
B2 B2 generate a symmetric system in which phase difference of 120
β 0 β
A1 A1 electrical degrees does not exist.
0

d1 d
As for 6-phase motors with symmetric and balanced
C1 C1
windings, dual three-phase windings consist of two different
C2 C2
Fig. 3. d-q model of the machine
independent 3-phase winding sets with a phase shift of 30
electrical degrees (Fig. 4 (a)). However, for dual 3-phase
78-slot motor is 37.3%. In addition, the fundamental motors with proposed asymmetric winding distribution, which
components of the proposed motor is 2.32% higher than the is optimized to provide the highest winding factor with lower
conventional 72-slot motor. MMF harmonics, a phase shift of lower than 30 electrical
A. Specifications and PM Motor Design degrees between the 3-phase winding sets is attained due to
D-q model of dual three-phase motor can be considered as the asymmetric configuration. Phasor diagram of dual 3-phase
conventional d-q set of three-phase machines since it has two configuration with asymmetric structure proposed in this study
individual 3-phase winding sets. In this case, two separate d-q is illustrated in Fig. 4 (b). Phase difference of 120.3 electrical
sets are performed as d1-q1 and d2-q2 models [6], as given in degrees between phase A1 and phase B1 exists, and also the
Fig. 3. Hence, the transformation from A-B-C to d-q model phase shift between two independent 3-phase winding sets
can be given as (between phase A1 and A2) becomes 27.7 electrical degrees
T due to asymmetric structure.
 cos   sin 1    S A  C B B1 C B
S d  2    
   
1 B1
  (1) 1

 
1
  cos   2  sin   2  S
3  1 120°
A2 A2
120.3°
cos  4   sin  
1
3
1 3 B
π/3 B2
 S q1  4   S C1D 30°π/3A1 B2 27.7° A1
 A

D A
1 3 1 3
T
 cos  
 sin  2   S A2  E F F
S d 2  2   C1 E C2
   
2 (a) C1 C2 (b)
  (2)
 S   cos  2  2 3  sin   2   S B2 
   
2 3
 q2  3  SC  kw=1 kw=0.947
cos  2  4 3  sin  2  4 
3  2

where A1, B1, C1 and d1-q1 denote the first winding set though
A2, B2, C2 and d2-q2 are the second set. The angle between d1
axis and the axis of phase A1 is β1 in radian, whereas the angle (c) (d)
Fig. 4. Phasor diagram of dual 3-phase configuration with (a) symmetric and
between d2 axis and the axis of phase A2 is β2 in radian. (b) asymmetric structure and their Gorges diagrams (c) and (d)
The electromagnetic torque equations generated by the first
(T1) and the second winding sets (T2) are given in (3) and (4), C. Magnet Pole-Arc Optimization
respectively. Thus, the total torque can be obtained by the sum Varying the magnet pole-arc angle, αm as shown in Fig. 5
of T1 and T2. affects both no-load and on-load performance of the motor.
T1 
3 p
22
 
d 1 iq1  Ld1  Lq1 iq1 id1   (3)
[7]-[9]. Influence of magnet pole-arc is investigated for the
proposed multi-phase motor to find optimum value and

0018-9464 (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TMAG.2016.2524027, IEEE
Transactions on Magnetics
GJ-03 3

αP

αm magnets
Fig. 8. Magnetic flux density variation of the motor with 78-slot 12-pole
lamination
Fig. 5. Magnet pole-arc variation of the motor 2 magnet stator

d-axis flux density [T]

3
72slot-12pole 1.5
2.5
Peak Cogging [Nm]

78slot-12pole rotor
2 1
1.5
0.5 72slot-12pole
1 78slot-12pole
0.5 0
0 Fig. 9. Flux density levels along d-axis for both symmetric and asymmetric
110 120 130 140 150 160 170 stators
Magnet Pole- Arc [elec. deg.] 160 A1-B1 B1-C1 C1-A1
Fig. 6. Peak cogging torque variations as a function of magnet pole-arc for the
120 A2-B2 B2-C2 C2-A2

Line Back EMF [V]

conventional and proposed motor with 72-slot 12-pole (1-segment rotor) and
78-slot 12-pole 80
3 2.5 40
0
Torque Ripple Percentage

2.5 2.0 -40 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

%THD (line voltage)

2 -80
1.5
1 Rotor Position [Mechanical Degrees]
%THD line
0.5
α=140° % ripple
0 0.0
110 120 130 140 150 160
Magnet Pole- Arc [elec. deg.]
Fig. 7. %THD for line voltage and torque ripple percentages as a function of
magnet pole-arc for the proposed 78-slot 12-pole asymmetric PM motor
enhance the motor performance. Fig. 6 shows the cogging
variation as a function of αm. As expected, more dips with
smaller amplitude of cogging is observed for the proposed
asymmetric fractional multi-phase PM motor. Fig. 7 shows
torque ripple and total harmonic distortion percentages as
magnet pole-arc changes. As seen from both figures that there
exists only one point to minimize all of these components.
Therefore, a pole-arc of 140° has to be used in order to obtain
low cogging torque and torque ripple percentage levels and
sinusoidal back-EMF waveform for the proposed motor.
Average torque of both motors is roughly identical for the
same magnet volume, number of turns (4 turns) and phase
current. However, the optimized magnet pole-arc value of the
proposed motor results slightly higher magnet volume
compared to 72-slot conventional motor, leading to increase
average torque by 3.6%.
D. 2D FEA of the PM Motor
Detailed finite element analysis obtained using Flux® 2D
[10] are carried out for the optimized magnet pole-arc value.
Magnetic flux density variation of the new unconventional
motor with 78-slot 12-pole is illustrated in Fig. 8. Flux density
1.5
-120
-160 27.5°
1.0
Fig. 10. Line back-EMF voltage waveforms of the PM motor (@1000rpm)
0.5
levels along d-axis for both conventional and unconventional
designs are also provided in Fig. 9. Both no-load and on-load
170
analyses are accomplished for the proposed multi-phase PM
motor. Cogging torque peak value achieved at very low rotor
speed is found as 0.14Nm. This value is 0.12% of the machine
rated torque and can be considered as extremely low. This
expected cogging outcome is one of the key benefits of the
proposed multi-phase motor.
In addition, back-EMF voltage waveforms at 1000rpm are
given in Fig. 10. It is noted that there exist a phase shift of
27.5electrical degrees between the first and second winding
sets as expected. Line voltages are sinusoidal with around
1.3% THD level. Proposed multi-phase PM motor has an
average torque capability of 113Nm (Fig. 11) when all of the
stator windings are energized. Torque ripple, which is one of
the critical design parameters and cause vibration and effect
controllability, is only 1.1% of the rated torque for the
proposed motor. Moreover, torque-current loci is shown in
Fig. 12. The motor has a capability to provide 113Nm rated
and 340Nm peak torque for a short period of time.
It should be noted that there is no need to take an extra
precaution to lower cogging torque or torque ripple such as
skewing, magnet tapering, displacing or shifting the magnets
etc. due to un-even distribution of slots over each pole.
Therefore, the better torque quality and motor performance is
achieved due to the selected slot-pole combination and the
new unconventional stator winding design.

0018-9464 (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TMAG.2016.2524027, IEEE
Transactions on Magnetics
GJ-03 4

140 TABLE II
120 PERFORMANCE COMPARISON BETWEEN 72-SLOT/12-POLE AND 78-SLOT/12-
POLE MULTI-PHASE MOTORS
100
Torque [Nm]

114 72-slot/12-pole 78-slot/12-pole

80
Unconventional
60 113
Stator Conventional stator with q=1
stator with q≠1
40 Tripple=1.1% 1-segment† 4-segment† 1-segment
20 112
0 Rotor
0 20 40 60
Rotor position [Mechanical Degrees]
%Tcogging 0.4% 0.29% 0.12%
Fig. 11. Rated torque output waveform of the proposed PM motor at 50Arns
B-EMF fund. 97.4 V 93.1 V 98.5 V
400 Torque 109 Nm 104 Nm 113 Nm
350 linear line %Tripple 2.8% 0.9% 1.1%
300 average torque Torque constant 2.17 Nm/Arms 2.07 Nm/Arms 2.27 Nm/Arms
Torque [Nm]

250 11.6% sat. Copper losses 969 W 969 W 997.5 W

200 5.2% sat.
150
100
1.1% sat.
50
0
0 25 50 75 100 125
Current [Arms]
Fig. 12. Torque-current loci of the proposed motor
III. PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF 6-PHASE SYMMETRIC
AND ASYMMETRIC WINDING MULTI-PHASE MOTORS
In this section, a performance comparison of a conventional
integer-slot (72-slot/12-pole) with symmetric winding and
proposed unconventional fractional-slot (78-slot/12-pole) PM
synchronous motors with asymmetric windings is carried out.
The integer-slot PM motor has two different rotor structures:
1-segment (un-skewed) and 4-segment (skewed) rotors, and
performances of both motors have already been verified
experimentally. In order to make a fair comparison, the
proposed motor is designed for roughly the same amount of
magnet, same mechanical airgap, same number of turns and
rated currents. Key parameters are compared in details in
Table II. As seen from the table, torque density of the
proposed fractional-slot PM motor can be increased by 3.5%
with respect to conventional integer-slot multi-phase motor
with 1-segment and by 7.9% as for the motor with 4-
segmented rotor. It has to be mentioned that if identical rotor
is used for both stators, same torque constants (2.17Nm/Arms)
are obtained. Besides, cogging torque and torque ripple
components of the proposed 78-slot motor are reduced
considerably due to unconventional stator slot number. It must
be noted that both no-load and on-load motor performances
are increased considerably with proposed multi-phase motor.
IV. CONCLUSION
This paper explores design and analyses of a new multi-phase
PM motor with unconventional stator slot-pole combination
and asymmetric stator winding. Proposed motor performance
data is also compared with symmetric multi-phase PM motor
with dual 3-phase AC windings to illustrate the benefits. PM
motor specifications, motor winding design and motor design
details are provided in the paper. Detailed 2D FEA of the
proposed motor with various optimizations is performed in
Iron losses 137.5 W 130.4 W 137.1 W
Magnet losses 4W 1.5 W 8W
Torque-to-weight 3.66 Nm/kg 3.49 Nm/kg 3.77 Nm/kg
Torque-to-volume 0.0452 Nm/cm3 0.0432 Nm/cm3 0.0469 Nm/cm3
†
Experimentally verified.
150 order to attain low cogging torque, torque ripple and THD
levels. Performance comparison of a conventional, previously
designed and built, integer-slot (72-slot/12-pole) multi-phase
motor with symmetric winding and proposed novel “almost-
integer” fractional-slot (78-slot/12-pole) multi-phase PM
synchronous motors with asymmetric windings is completed
in order to illustrate the benefits of the proposed design. It was
shown that proposed multi-phase PM motor has extremely low
cogging and torque ripple levels and very low back-EMF THD
as opposed to most conventional 3-phase PM motors and
conventional multi-phase PM motor studied in the paper.
Taking into account the same motor volume, weight and
current; torque density and torque-to-weight ratio of the
proposed motor is slightly higher than those of conventional
multi-phase motor.
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