2022 13th Power Electronics, Drive Systems, and Technologies Conference (PEDSTC)
1-3 February, 2022, Shahid Behesti University, Tehran, Iran
Electromagnetic Performance Comparison of
Halbach Array configurations in Permanent Magnet
2022 13th Power Electronics, Drive Systems, and Technologies Conference (PEDSTC) | 978-1-6654-2043-3/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/PEDSTC53976.2022.9767439
Synchronous Machine
Mohammad Taghavi
Department of Electrical Engineering Centre for Hybrid Automotive Research and
K. N. Toosi University of Technology Green Energy (CHARGE),
Tehran, Iran University of Windsor, ON, Canada – N9B
mohammad.taghavi@email.kntu.ac.ir
taqavi@uwindsor.ca
Abstract— High-speed electrical machines are an
appropriate choice for a wide range of applications. Among
different types of them, the permanent magnet type is very
popular. This paper presents a comparison between radial and
various discrete magnet Halbach array configurations in a
ferrite-based high-speed permanent magnet synchronous
machine (PMSM). The structures performances containing the
air-gap field distribution, back-electromotive-force as well as
cogging torque are presented. Finally, the most suitable
configuration among the proposed Halbach topologies is
selected and is compared to its coreless counterpart through
finite element analysis (FEA) simulations. According to results,
while the cored PMSM with Halbach magnet array provides
lower cogging torque and better performance than the
conventional radial PMSM, the coreless one has the lowest
amount of loss.
Keywords— FEM analysis, Ferrites, Halbach array, High-
speed machines, PMSM
I. INTRODUCTION
High-speed electrical machines (HSEM) have been
employed in many applications so far, and now are considered
as a promising candidate for in trend applications like electric
vehicles and wind turbine, in which high speed is one of the
main requirements [1]. Furthermore, developments of power
electronic devices, materials, and manufacturing techniques
have made it possible to design and prototype unprecedented
HS structures [2]. In general, there is no specific type of
machine that can be accepted standard for HSEM. However,
compared with induction and switch reluctance machines,
Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machines (PMSM) are
recommended for HS applications as they offer highest
power/torque density, increased efficiency, lowest weight,
and volume [3]‒[5]. Although PMSMs are the most attractive
type for HSEMs, the use of rare-earth permanent magnets
(PM) should be limited. Recently, due to the increasing
concerns about rare-earth PM availability and price
fluctuations [6], researchers are targeting designs and put
effort on rreducing their usage. In this regard, the employment
of cheaper contents like ferrite PMs seems a better viable
option for PMSMs. This results in a significant cost reduction
without impairing HS-PMSM performances [4], [7], [8].
Nevertheless, ferrite-based HS-PMSMs still suffer from
relatively low power/torque density, some critical issues
related to weak residual magnetism, and low coercive force as
the ferrite-based PMs are not as strong as rare-earth ones.
Various PM configurations for PMSMs are possible,
which means different PM shapes and arrangements can be
implemented on the rotor. Among the possible configurations
and solutions, Halbach structure is a good choice. A Halbach
array is a kind of PM arrangement, which is mostly
978-1-6654-2043-3/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE
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Omolbanin Taqavi Seyyed Mehdi Mirimani
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department,
Babol Noshirvani University of Technology,
3P4, Babol, Iran
mirimani@nit.ac.ir
appropriate for the rotor surface adhered the PM. It is a special
arrangement of PMs that concentrate the magnetic field on one
side of the array whereas reducing the field to near zero on the
other side; at the same time it is capable to make a sinusoidal
magnetic field [9]. The most notable expected result from this
arrangement is that the air-gap flux increases, while the rotor
yoke flux decreases, and hence, the resultant air-gap magnetic
field will be sinusoidal [10]. Researches showed that Halbach
PMSMs have several attractive features [11]. They have an
essentially sinusoidal air-gap field distribution and
electromotive-force (EMF) waveform, and exhibit negligible
cogging torque [12], [13]. Due to Halbach structure features,
the core can be eliminated, hence, the coreless machine offers
remarkable advantages like elimination of eddy current losses
on rotor yoke and reduction on total weight. Also, for HS
structures, a mechanical sleeve has to be adopted by
employing strong but light materials, like carbon fibres and
should be set on the glued PMs to the rotor to keep the
mechanical integrity [14]. The sleeve should be considered in
electromagnetic studies too as it results in an additional air-
gap.
In this paper, three different discrete Halbach array
configurations are proposed for a 2 poles, 3 phases cored HS-
PMSM, and are compared with the conventional radial PM
configuration. In order to find the best one, their performances
are compared by using finite element method (FEM) analysis
that put in view the difference of main magnetic parameters
like air-gap flux density, back-EMF, cogging torque and PMs
eddy current loss. Therefore, two cases for the best
configuration are studied; one with the core and the other one
without the core. The numerical results show that the coreless
Halbach structure results in a better machine dynamic
response, acceleration, and also decreases the rotor inertia,
loss, costs, and total weight.
II. TOPOLOGIES AND OPERATING PRINCIPLE
The radial HS-PMSM motor is designed as a three-phase
structure demonstrated in Fig.1(a). The inner rotor consists of
shaft, yoke, PMs, and retaining sleeve, while the outer stator
is composed by teeth and 18 slots that host the winding. Ferrite
material is used for 2 pole surface magnets on rotor. The
machine data are given in Table I.
Various types of Halbach array configurations will be
employed in this design while utilizing the same magnet
material and volume, outer and inner radius of stator, air-gap
size, and outer radius of rotor. These arrays will be three
Halbach configurations with different segmentations and
geometries. In an ideal external field Halbach magnetized
structure; the magnetization vector can be expressed as [1],
31
 (a) (b) (c) (d)

Fig. 1. Polarizations of PM arrays with different assembelies. a) Radially magnetized PM array structure, b) Halbach array with 8 arc shape segments, c)
Halbach array with 18 arc shape segments, d) Halbach array with 18 triangular segments.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. 2. Air-gap flux density. a) Radially magnetized PM array structure, b) Halbach array with 8 arc shape segments, c) Halbach array with 18 arc shape
segments, d) Halbach array with 18 triangular segments.

segmented triangular shaped Halbach array as they are shown

M = M cos(pθ) er ‒ M sin(pθ) eθ
where M is the amplitude of magnetization, er and eθ are
vectors defined in polar coordinates. Moreover, when a
segmented Halbach is employed, the ideal magnetization
distribution is approximated as the direction of magnetization
for each individual PM is defined by [15],
θm = (1 ± p) θi
where θi is the angle between the center of ith magnet segment
and θ=0 line. Reference [16] showed that, as the
segmentations of Halbach arrays increase, the air-gap flux
distributions gets more sinusoidal. Hence, there are four
different configurations that are radially magnetized array, 8
and 18 segmented arc shaped Halbach array and 18
(1) with polarizations in Fig.1.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Over the past few years, the employment of FFM that is one
of the most useful numerical techniques for the calculation of
the magnetic field on electrical machines has grown steadily.
Hence, in this section a comparative study between radial
(2) PMSM and its Halbach array counterparts in terms of
electromagnetic performances is presented using FEA.
A. Air-gap Flux Distribution and core loss
With the aim of finding machine’s air-gap flux density, the
speed of machine was set to 30 Krpm which indicates the
usual operation speed of it. Figs. 2(a)‒(d) show the air-gap

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field distribution of the four proposed structures of HS-PMSM
and Table II tabulated the air-gap flux density peak values for
all applied PM configurations. As can be seen, the peak values
of air-gap flux density for all Halbach array structures are
higher than for the radial array. Nonetheless, it should be
noted that the average value of flux density for Halbach
configuration is lower than radial structure.
Moreover, the analysis results illustrated in Table III,
shows that the core loss for 18 segmented arc shaped Halbach
array is much lower than radial array with an 18% reduction.
It is because of the more sinusoidal flux density which has
fewer ripples, hence, less core loss. Therefore, among the
proposed PM assemblies, the 18 segments arc shaped one has
the highest and most sinusoidal flux density and also the (a)
lowest core loss.

B. Induced Voltage
The back-EMF waveforms has been investigated for
proposed configurations and the RMS phase EMF is defined
as [17];
E= √2 re la Bm k Nph ws / p (3)

Where p is the pole pairs, ws is the electrical angular velocity,

Nph is the number of turns in one phase, k is the winding factor,
Bm is the maximum air-gap flux density, la is the stack length
and re is the radius of air-gap, and to show the quality of back-
EMF waveform, defining the total harmonic distortion (THD)
is needed, (b)

2 2 2
2 + 3 + ⋯+
=
1 (4)

where A is harmonic order amplitude. The calculated THD

values of RMS back-EMF are all in Table II. As can be seen
in Table II, the THD of the Halbach array configurations
back-EMF are all less than 2% which is acceptable.

TABLE I. MAIN PARAMETERS OF THE AFPM MACHINE

Parameter Value
(c)
Rated Speed (Krpm) 30

Rated Torque (N.m) 12.73

Magnet Material type Ferrite

Number of Poles 2

Number of Slots 18

TABLE II. CORE LOSS OF DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS

(d)
Halbach Halbach Halbach
PM array with array with array with Fig. 3. Cogging torque. a) Radially magnetized PM array structure, b)
Radial Halbach array with 8 arc shape segments, c) Halbach array with 18 arc shape
assembly 8 arc shape 18 arc shape 18 triangular
segments segments segments segments, d) Halbach array with 18 triangular segments.
THD% 1.034 1.0369 1.0349 1.0348

Bair_rms (T) 0.907 0.784 0.631 0.774

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C. Cogging Torque
All four models have been simulated in FEM under some
conditions and the results are shown in Figs. 3(a)‒(d). The aim
of this investigation is to find the impact of various rotor
structures on the cogging torque quality and value.
Due to results, it is obvious that the Halbach array
minimizes the cogging torque effect.
In summary, the 18 segmented arc shaped Halbach
configuration showed a good performance containing
sinusoidal flux density, lower cogging torque and loss.

Moreover, the generated back-EMF in this structure is not

significant compared to other structures. Thus, the 18
segmented arc shaped Halbach assembly is chosen to be
compared to its coreless counterpart. Fig. 4. Back-EMF waveforms obtained for coreless and core structures

IV. COMPARISON OF CORED AND CORELESS HALBACH

CONFIGURATIONS
As the distribution of flux density in rotor yoke of inner
rotor Halbach structure is very low, the result is an
approximately zero saturation in the rotor. Hence, the rotor
core which is made of magnetic materials can be eliminated.
Performance results in terms of back-EMF from FEM analysis
are obtained to make a comparison between cored and
coreless Halbach array HS-PMSMs. Fig. 4 compares the
induced back-EMF waveforms for cored and coreless
topologies. Regarding the relatively high magnetic air-gap of
the machine, it is clear that both waveforms are sinusoidal.
However, the coreless structure offers a 12% higher back-
EMF. In addition, the 3D no-load magnetic flux density for
the whole air-gap area along the radial direction provided by
the 2D FEM is presented in Fig. 5 for coreless structure. Thus,
the comparison showed that the core elimination enhances the
machine dynamic response, acceleration, and it reduces the
inertia of the rotor, costs, and total weight [2].
V. CONCLUSION
The research has shown the influence of Halbach array
configurations on HS-PMSM properties while keeping the
magnet volume constant. A two pole HS-PMSM with surface
mounted structure is modified to different Halbach array
segmentations, which were analyzed with FEM. All the
Halbach configurations reduced cogging torque and offered a Fig. 5. The 3D no-load air-gap flux density distribution of coreless structure
sinusoidal air-gap flux density with high value, thus, results in
less core and eddy current loss. However, Halbach array
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