3D Modeling of Double Excitation Synchronous

Motor with Reluctance Network

K. Hoang, L. Vido, M. Gabsi, F. Gillon

Φ
Abstract -- This paper presents the reluctance network
method used in modeling double excitation synchronous
motor. The fringing effect and saturation are taken into
account. This method shows its advantage in term of
simulation time while maintaining a good accuracy; this fast
model will accelerate the optimization process. The
comparisons with 3D finite element method and experiment
will be also investigated.
Index Terms-- reluctance network, double excitation,
synchronous motor, 3D modeling.
I. INTRODUCTION
such as thermal or acoustic ones [16], [17].
A crucial component of the RN model is the air-gap
reluctance which changes with the relative movement
between stator and rotor [6]. In [12], a complex calculation
for air-gap reluctance using Schwarz-Christoffel
transformation was presented for a simple 2D air-gap
configuration such as inductor and transformer cores. For
the sake of simplicity, usually, the flux flowing through the
air-gap is only confined to the overlapped area between
stator tooth and corresponding rotor positions. The work of
this paper takes into account the fringing effect. By this, the
air-gap reluctance is calculated based on the area extended

D ouble (or hybrid) excitation synchronous motor

(DESM) is basically a permanent magnet synchronous
motor (PMSM) with additional excitation windings [1]. The
out of the overlapped area between stator tooth and rotor.
For the evaluation of RN method according to
simulation time and accuracy, the results are compared to
purpose of this excitation combination is to bring together 3D FEM (using Maxwell software) and experimental ones.
advantages of PMSM which are high power density and
high efficiency and advantages of wound field synchronous II. RELUCTANCE NETWORK METHOD WITH DESM
motor with the capability of field weakening control.
A. DESM model configuration
Several papers have been presented focusing on DESM; in
[11], authors presented a parallel type of DESM and The double excitation principle allows a wide variety of
comparisons with other structures. [1] covered some basics DESM structures to be realized. Many criteria can then be
of HESM and also proposed a solution to improve the chosen for the classification of DESM. Regarding the type
energy efficiency of the traction motor in electric or hybrid of flux combination, the motor could be classified as serial
vehicle applications. or parallel DESM. Concerning the localization of the
As the result of this hybridization with the flux coming excitation flux sources, both sources could be placed in the
from two sources (permanent magnets (PMs) and excitation stator, rotor or mixed. Fig. 1 shows the studied model of
windings), the motor flux lines are truly three dimensional DESM [7].
in certain configurations [1]. With the use of 3D finite
element method (3D FEM), therefore, high accuracy on
flux path is obtained. However, the inherited problem with
3D FEM is time consuming [5]. In fact, if the FEM is used
in an iterative process as a design by optimization, the
flexibility and the speed become crucial to solve the
problem.
On the other hand, Reluctance Network (RN) method
provides a noticeable compromise between analysis time a) Arrangement of PMs in 2D
and accuracy. This method with the concept of flux tubes
transforms the motor into an equivalent magnetic circuit
presented by nodes, reluctances and magneto-motive forces
(MMF). RN method is widely employed in electric motor
analysis, for example switched reluctance motors [13],
induction motor [14] and permanent magnet motor [15].
Using RN method is also advantageous compared to FE
method when there is a need to couple with other analyses

K. Hoang is with SATIE laboratory, ENS Cachan, 94230 Cachan,

France (e-mail: kienht26@gmail.com).
L. Vido is with SATIE laboratory, Université de Cergy-Pontoise,
94230 Cachan, France (e-mail: lionel.vido@u-cergy.fr).
M. Gabsi is with SATIE laboratory, ENS Cachan, 94230 Cachan,
France (e-mail: gabsi@satie.ens-cachan.fr)
F. Gillon is with the University of Lille Nord de France, F-5900 Lille, b) 3D model
France. EC-Lille, L2EP, F-59650 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France (email:
frederic.gillon@ec-lille.fr) Fig. 1. DESM structure used for modeling

978-1-4799-4775-1/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE 2598

 For the purpose of clearance, phase windings are not
presented in the drawing. In this model, two toroidal S1 rsy S2 mph S3 S4
windings are employed for the DC excitation. These two
windings are located in the stator that helps to avoid sliding a+ c- b+ a- c+ b- rst
contacts. PMs are placed in the rotor using flux focusing rst
rsl2
principle to increase air-gap flux density. Due to this flux
focalization, the model uses ferrite PMs which are cheaper rag2
than rare earth counterparts. The stator uses conventional rag1
laminated core. However, on the account of 3D flux path
presented in the rotor, both solid and laminated cores are rrl
rrv
used to construct this rotating part. Using solid core is
mpm rrh
nearly unavoidable in any 3D flux machine, despite the fact R1 R2 R1
that the solid core definitely increases core loss. The 3D Rotor
Rotor Pole2
Rotor
Pole 1 PM PM Pole 1
flux characteristic also explains why 3D FEM is necessary
in the motor analysis. The more details for configurations
a) First part of the reluctance network. rsy, rst, rsl, rag, rpm, rrv and rrh
of the studied model are given in the Appendix. are respectively reluctances of stator yoke, stator tooth, stator tooth
B. Reluctance Network method leakage, air-gap, permanent magnet, rotor vertical part and rotor horizontal
part. mph and mpm are phase winding and permanent magnet MMF.
Conventionally, there are two different methods can be
used with RN method which are tooth contour method [2]
E
and flux tubes method [3]. In this work, flux tubes method External
is employed. This is the most popular implementation of yoke
RN method, it was proposed by V.Ostovic [3]. The mdc reyz
reyr
magnetic circuit of the motor is decomposed on several End
parts; each part is represented by the reluctance limited by a res + Si - shield
flux tube. The flux is considered to be constant inside the (i=1:6)
DC DC
tube. rago winding winding
Stator
Fig. 2 shows how the reluctance network of the studied Rotoric
rrc rpm rrz mpm
model are defined for one pole pair. For the ease of flux
observation, the reluctance model is divided into two parts, PM PM collector
the first one (Fig. 2a) consists of laminated stator part,
laminated and solid rotor parts, phase winding and azimuth z E'
magnets and the second parts is composed of two excitation b) Second part of the reluctance network in circumferential direction with
windings, side magnets, external yoke, rotoric flux reyz, reyr, res, rago, rrc, rrz are respectively reluctances of external yoke
collectors and end shields (Fig. 2b and 2c). The second part (in z direction), external yoke (in radial direction), end shield, outer air-
gap, rotoric flux collector and rotor spike in z direction. mdc is the MMF
is the extension in Z direction and is symmetric through the of dc excitation winding.
plane E-E’ (Fig. 2b), so that fig. 2c only shows a half part
of this extension. These two reluctance networks are
connected by points Si (i=1:6) in the stator part and R1, R2 rey
in the rotor. reyr

A basic expression for reluctance calculation of the flux S2

S3 S4
S5
tube can be given by (1) [4] and permeance can be reyz S1 S6
calculated as (2):
l
R (1) DC
µµ S winding

1 µµ S mdc
R2
P (2) R1
R l res R1
rrz rrz
rrz
With l and S are the length and cross section of the flux rago
tube respectively. μr is the relative permeability of the tube rpm

material and μ0 is permeability of the air. For the air and
PMs, μr equals unity and for the core, μr is calculated
according to nonlinear B-H curve of the core material.
The reluctance network includes 70 non-linear
reluctances (core material) and 20 linear reluctances (air-
gap and PM reluctances). Among these reluctances,
excepting for air-gap ones, all others are easy to calculate
based on the element shapes. But for air-gap reluctances,
attention is paid in figuring out flux path through the air-
gap. Moreover, these reluctances depend on the rotor’s
positions.
rrc
c) Half model of the second part of the reluctance model in z direction.
(The E-E’ plane in fig. 2b).
Fig. 2. Reluctance network model of the studied DESM
In this model, each stator tooth is connected to both rotor
poles by two corresponding reluctances. Simply, the flux in
the air-gap is considered to be confined within the
overlapped area between stator tooth and rotor pole,
however, in order to take into account the fringing effect,
the effective overlapped area is extended by a distance that

2599
equals to air-gap length for each side of the tooth and all the by (3):
flux densities under this extended area are assumed to be [P] x [U] = [ф] (3)
constant and distributed equally. The flux is zero when the
stator tooth stays away from rotor pole edge by a distance With [P], [U] and [ф] are matrices for permeance,
of approximately 3.5 times of the air-gap length. This magnetic scalar potential and flux. Eqn. (3) is solved by
assumption could be understood by 2D flux line illustration using fixed point method for each rotor position. The
done with Ansys Maxwell at no load for the main part of algorithm diagram is explained in Fig. 5.
the studied model which includes only laminated stator
part, solid and laminated rotor part and azimuth PMs.

Fig. 3. Illustration for fringing effect consideration

The adjustment in the air-gap permeance for one stator

tooth passed by one rotor pole (for example pole 1) in one
pole-pair length is shown in Fig. 4.

Point A position Point B position

Fig. 5. Algorithm diagram for equations solving
2.5
With fringing
No fringing III. RESULTS AND COMPARISONS WITH 3D FEM
Air-gap permeance/1e5[WbA^-1]

2.0
A. Fringing effect consideration
1.5 With the contribution of DC excitation windings, the air-
gap flux is more flexibly controlled either reinforced or
1.0 weakened by injecting positive or negative dc currents (Idc).
Firstly, the effect of fringing will be examined at no load
0.5 condition for two cases of DC excitation current: Idc = 0A
C D B (PMs is unique source of excitation) and Idc = 7A (when
A
0.0 motor core is highly saturated). The comparisons for one
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 pole pair for flux linkage and back E.M.F are shown in Fig.
Tooth position/Pole pair
6. The E.M.F waveforms obtained by means of numerical
Fig. 4. Air-gap permeance with fringing consideration derivation of flux waveforms.

In Fig. 4, air-gap permeance is maximum (i.e. the 0.03

With fringing (Idc=7A)
reluctance is minimum) when the whole stator tooth is No fringing (Idc=7A)
0.02
facing rotor pole. Without fringing consideration, air-gap With fringing (Idc=0A)
Flux linkage per phase/6 [Wb]

No fringing (Idc=0A)
permeance is zero (i.e. the reluctance is infinity) when the 0.01
leading edge of the tooth is between point A and B. Point A
and B are the positions where stator tooth is starting to 0.00

leave away and enter rotor pole (over-lap area between

-0.01
stator tooth and rotor pole is approximately zero). Due to
fringing effect as explained above, air-gap permeance will -0.02
be zero at point C (delay of A) and D (in advance of B)
with AC = DB = ~3.5 air-gap length. This higher -0.03
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
permeance will lead stator teeth less saturated and also an t/T
increase of leakage flux between rotor poles.
a) Flux linkage comparisons
The equations system for the flux calculations are given

2600
 2.5
With fringing
2.0 No fringing
1.5
E.M.F per phase/6 [V]

1.0
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5
-2.0
-2.5
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
t/T

b) Back E.M.F comparison (@ Idc = 0A, 170 rpm) b) Flux density distribution at Idc = 0A
Fig. 7. 3D FEM with Ansys Maxwell
4
With fringing The simulation is done for one period consisting of 60
3 No fringing
points. Fig. 8 shows the flux linkage and back E.M.F per
2 phase/6 (equals one pole pair) at the speed of 170 rpm. The
E.M.F per phase/6 [V]

1 simulation time are given in Table 1.

0
0.03
-1 RN method
3D FEM
Flux linkage per phase/6 [Wb]
-2 0.02

-3
0.01
-4
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0.00
t/T

c) Back E.M.F comparison (@ Idc = 7A, 170 rpm) -0.01

Fig. 6. Comparison at no load for fringing consideration
-0.02
As illustrated in Fig. 6 teeth saturation is confirmed to be
-0.03
less especially at high value of DC current when taking into 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
account the fringing effect, this is explained by lower air- t/T
gap reluctance and also an increase in flux leakage between a) Flux linkage at Idc = 0A
rotor poles compared to the no fringing case.
2.5
B. Comparison with 3D FEM RN method
2.0 3D FEM
In order to verify the accuracy and simulation time of
1.5
RN method, the results at no load are compared to 3D FEM
E.M.F per phase/6 [V]

1.0
performed by Ansys Maxwell software. With 3D FEM, 0.5
mesh generation and flux density are shown in Fig. 7. For a 0.0
better demonstration, flux density is only given for the main -0.5
part of DESM which includes only laminated stator core, -1.0
solid and laminated rotor core and PMs. -1.5
-2.0
-2.5
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
t/T

b) Back E.M.F (@ Idc = 0A, 170 rpm)

Fig. 8. Flux linkage and back E.M.F as function of time
Comparisons for radial component of air-gap flux
density at aligned position are shown in Fig. 9 for 3 cases of
Idc: 0A (without DC excitation), -3A (field weakening) and
3A (field reinforcing). Calculations are taken at the middle
point (in axial direction). It should be noted that air-gap
flux is assumed to be perpendicular to teeth’s surfaces.
a) 3D mesh generation

2601
 times faster with Idc = 3 A). The time for the case Idc = 3 A
1.0 is longer due to the non-linearity and more iterations are
RN method
0.8
3D FEM required.
0.6 TABLE 1. SIMULATION TIME COMPARISON
Air-gap flux density [T]

0.4

0.2 Excitation current 0A 3A

0.0
RN method 6.8 s 11.4 s
-0.2

-0.4 3D FEM 55 mins 72 mins

-0.6

-0.8

-1.0
C. Cogging torque calculation
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Cogging torque is produced by the interaction between
Mechanical angle [Degree]
rotor magnetic flux and variable permeance of the air-gap
a) Idc = -3 A due to the geometry of stator slots [8]. There are different
methods for cogging torque calculation for example
1.0
RN method
maxwell stress tensor method [18], energy variation method
0.8
3D FEM [19] or flux-MMF method [9], [10]. This paper uses flux-
0.6
MMF method, cogging torque is expressed by (4):
Air-gap flux density [T]

0.4
1 l dф
0.2 T B (4)
0.0
2 µ dθ
-0.2
Where Br is the residual flux density, lm is PMs
-0.4
thickness, µ0 is the permeability of air, Φ is the magnet flux
-0.6
calculated over a surface perpendicular to the direction of
-0.8
magnetization and θ is mechanical angle. With RN method,
-1.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 cogging torque calculation using (4) becomes easier to
Mechanical angle [Degree] handle because it only needs to calculate flux passing
b) Idc = 0 A through PMs in perpendicular direction at different
mechanical angle.
1.0 Fig. 10 shows cogging torque variation for its one period
RN method
0.8
3D FEM which is 10 mechanical degrees (there are 6 slots/pole pair
0.6 of 60 degrees).
Air-gap flux density [T]

0.4

0.2 0.15

0.0
0.10
-0.2
Cogging torque [Nm]

-0.4 0.05

-0.6
0.00
-0.8

-1.0 -0.05
0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Mechanical angle [Degree] -0.10

c) Idc = 3 A -0.15
Fig. 9. Air-gap flux density at different DC currents (No load) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Mechanical angle [Degree]
The maximum air-gap flux densities in RN method is Fig. 10. Cogging torque at Idc = 0 A
higher than that of 3D FEM, this can be explained by the
D. Comparison with experiment
assumption that all flux densities under the extended region
of overlapped area between stator tooth and rotor pole are With the purpose of verifying RN method results, back
constant and equally distributed (as stated in section II. B. E.M.F at Idc = 0A and speed of 170 rpm is taken into
). By FE analysis results, it can be seen that in reality this comparison with the ones from experiment [7]. The
extended region is even larger but in the outer region of this experimental model and the comparison are shown in Fig.
area, flux densities is smaller than the ones in the center. 11 and Fig. 12 respectively. The comparison confirms a
One more point should be noted here is the asymmetrical very good accuracy of RN method.
waveform of air-gap flux density. It is caused by
asymmetrical configuration of PMs. That is, for example
with the case Idc = 0A, the air-gap flux density above the
rotor pole with side PMs will be more reinforced compared
to the adjacent rotor pole.
The advantage of RN method in term of simulation time
can be obviously seen in the table I which is much faster
versus 3D FEM (485 times faster with Idc = 0 A and 379 Rotor detail

2602
 [2] Ilhan. E, Paulides. J, Encica, L, and Lomonova. E, “Tooth contour
method implementation for the flux-switching PM machines”, in Int.
Conf. on Electrical Machines (ICEM) pages 1-6, Sept. 2010
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[4] D. Fodorean, A. Djerdir, I.-A. Viorel, and A. Miraoui, “A double
excited synchronous machine for direct drive application—Design
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PM machines," presented at IEEE Int. Conf. Electric Machines and
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2.5
RN method [6] Joshua Michael Williams, “Modeling and analysis of electric
2.0 Experiment machines with asymmetric rotor poles using a reluctances based,
1.5 magnetic equivalent circuit,” Ph.D. dissertation in electrical
engineering. University of Missouri-Rolla, 2004.
E.M.F per phase/6 [V]

1.0
[7] Vido. L, Gabsi. M, Lecrivain. M and Amara. Y, “Homopolar and
0.5
bipolar hybrid excitation synchronous machines”, in Proc. IEEE Int.
0.0 Electric Machines and Drives Conf., IEMDC2005, San Antonio, TX,
-0.5 May, 2005, pp. 1212-1218.
-1.0 [8] Jacek F. Gieras, “Analytical approach to cogging torque calculation
-1.5
of PM brushless motors”, IEEE Trans. Industry Application, vol. 40,
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-2.0
[9] Kaiyuan Lu, Peter Omand Rasmussen and Ewen Ritchie, “An
-2.5 analytical equation for cogging torque calculation in permanent
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
magnet motors”, 17th Int. Conf. on Electrical machines, Chania,
t/T Kreta Greece, 2006.
Fig. 12. Back E.M.F comparison with experiment (@170 rpm) [10] P.A. Watterson, “Energy calculation of a permanent magnet system
by surface and flux integrals (the flux-mmf method)”, IEEE Trans.
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“A new parallel double excitation synchronous machine”. IEEE
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performed by method of reluctance network. Thanks to the [12] Arun Balakrishnan, William T. Joines, and Thomas G. Wilson, “Air-
advantages of this RN method, the simulation time is much gap reluctance and inductance calculations for magnetic circuits
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required for DESM (due to the 3D flux characteristic). On [13] B. Bekkouche, A. Chaouch, and Y. Mezari, “A switched reluctance
the other hand, the accuracy is quite acceptable and well motors analyse using permeance network method”, Int. Journal of
confirmed by experimental results. That good compromise Applied Engineering Research, vol. 1, no. 2, , pp. 137-152, 2006.
[14] Tajima. K, Sato. K, Komukai. T, and Ichinokira. O, “Reluctance
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[15] Nakamura. K, Ichinokura. O, “Dynamic simulation of PM motor
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2008
STUDIED MODEL CONFIGURATION
[16] Bracikowski. N, Hecquet. M, Brochet. P, and Shirinskii, S.V,
Parameters Value “ Multiphysics modeling of a permanent magnet synchronous
machine by using lumped models”. IEEE Trans. on Industrial
Number of phases 3 Electronics, vol 59, no. 6, pp 2426-2467, June 2012.
[17] Nicolas Bracikowski, DanIlea Dan, Frédéric Gillon, Michel Hecquet,
Number of turns per phase 33
Pascal Brochet, “ Multi-physis rules of permanent magnet
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[18] Jong Hyun Choi, and Yoon Su Baek, “Theoretical analysis and its
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force”, IEEE Trans. on Magnetic, vol. 45, no. 10, pp 4692-4695, Oct.
Outer stator diameter 92 mm
2009.
Inner stator diameter 57.5 mm [19] Ionel. D. M, Popescu. M, McGilp. M, Miller. T.J.E, and Dellinger. S,
“Assessment of torque components in brushless permanent magnet
Number of slots 36 machines through numerical analysis of the electromagnetic field”,
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Air-gap length 0.5 mm 1715-1722, Seattle, WA, USA, Oct. 2004.
PM residual flux density 0.4 T (ferrite PM)
VII. BIOGRAPHIES
Based speed 2000 rpm
Rated power 3 kW K. Hoang received M.S. degree in electrical engineering from University
of Science and Technology (South Korea) in 2011. He is currently
working towards PhD degree in ENS Cachan (France). His field of interest
VI. REFERENCES is electrical machines.
[1] Yacine Amara, Lionel Vido, Mohamed Gabsi and Emmanuel Hoang,
"Hybrid excitation synchronous machines: Energy-efficient solution Lionel Vido got M.S and PhD degree from ENS Cachan respectively in
for vehicles propulsion," IEEE Trans. Vehicular Technology, vol. 58, 2001 and 2004. Since 2005, he has been Associate Professor with the
pp. 2137-2149, June 2009. University of Cergy-Pontoise. He is currently with the SATIE laboratory,
ENS Cachan, CNRS and also with University Paris Sud. His main fields of

2603
 interests include the design, modeling and control of new hybrid machines
and novel permanent-magnet machines for automotive applications.
Mohamed Gabsi received PhD degree from University of Paris 6 in 1987
and the Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR) degree from
University of Paris 11 in 1999. Since 1990, he has been with the SATIE
laboratory, ENS Cachan, Since 2008, he has been a full Professor of
electrical engineering with the Department of Electronics and Electrical
Engineering, ENS Cachan. His research interests include switched
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reluctance machines, vibration, and acoustic-noise and permanent-magnet
machines.
Frederic Gillon obtained engineer diploma in 1992 and a PhD degree in
1997 from University of science and technology. He is currently an
Assistant professor at Ecole central de Lille since 1999. His main research
subjects are the design by optimization of electric system and the study of
electrical machines for applications such as linear, axial and radial
synchronous motors and railway propulsion system.