See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/309339321

Thermal analysis of BLDC motor with propose new arrangement for

permanent magnets to magnet eddy current loss reduction

Conference Paper · May 2016

DOI: 10.1109/IranianCEE.2016.7585807

CITATIONS READS

5 1,330

2 authors:

Abbas Nazari Marashi Khalil Kanzi

Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research
7 PUBLICATIONS   31 CITATIONS    19 PUBLICATIONS   63 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Direct - drive permanent magnet synchronous generator designfor wind turbines View project

High Frequency modeling of AC motors View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Abbas Nazari Marashi on 30 December 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

2016 24th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE)
Thermal Analysis of BLDC Motor With Propose
New Arrangment for Permanent Magnets to
Magnet Eddy Current Loss Reduction
Abbas Nazari Marashi
Faculty Member
Iranian Academic Center for Education, Culture and
Research (ACECR)
Nasir branch
Tehran, Iran
Email:asnazari.87@gmail.com
Abstract—NdFeB permanent-magnets (PM) are very often used
in the PM machines due to their high energy density. As the
NdFeB-magnets are good electric conductive materials, electric
currents are induced in the magnets when they are exposed to a
varying magnetic field. The temperature rise due to eddy current
loss in the PM leads to serious deterioration of the PM, especially
in high speed operation. To reduce the eddy current loss
produced in the PM, many studies have presented, and proposed
several schemes, including the segmented PM. In this paper, a
new structure based on segmentation was proposed to optimize
the eddy current loss. Then “transient thermal circuit” is used
for thermal analysis of BLDC motor, and thermal circuit are
implemented in PSpice to calculate temperature of various parts
of motors. Thermal analysis is carried out for both solid and
optimization model of permanent magnet and their results are
compared.
Keywords- eddy current loss; Permanent magnet segmentation;
transient thermal circuit
I. INTRODUCTION
BLDC machines have been developed in many applications,
such as compressors, machine tools, pumps and turbine
generators, due to the small size, high power density and
efficiency. In these motors rare-earth magnets such as SmCo,
NdFeB, etc., are used in rotor of the motor. The conductivity
of these magnets is higher than that of ferrite magnets. In high
speed operation, the loss due to eddy currents produced in the
permanent-magnet (PM) cannot be neglected. This loss
reduces the power efficiency, and more importantly, may
demagnetize the magnets. To reduce the eddy current loss
produced in the PM, many studies have presented an eddy
current analysis in the PM of surface-mounted PM machines,
and proposed several schemes, such as the segmented PM [1]–
[3] and the insulated PM [2]. It has been demonstrated that the
proposed methods in the PM for reduce eddy current loss are
very practical. The most common way of reducing the losses
in magnets is to divide them into smaller parts [1].
978-1-4673-8789-7/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Kh Kanzi
Assistant Professor
Iranian Academic Center for Education, Culture and
Research (ACECR)
Nasir Branch
Tehran, Iran
Email: khkanzi@gmail.com
In [4] a new structure for PMs based on the magnet
segmentation method was proposed. With this optimum
structure, PM eddy current loss in surface-mounted BLDC
was reduced more than traditional magnet segmentation.
The dependence of the safe operating conditions and
overloading capabilities on the temperature rise makes a prior
estimation of the thermal behavior as very important issue for
any electrical machine. It is obvious that an exact
determination of the thermal behavior of the machine is
impossible due to many variable factors, such as unknown loss
components and their distribution, and the three dimensional
complexity of the problem.
The thermal analysis is more important in high-speed
machines since they have smaller cooling surfaces, and also
high current densities.
There are various methods to analyze the thermal behavior of
an electrical machine such as finite difference and finite
elements [5], or alternative numerical techniques such as
computational fluid dynamics [6]. Nevertheless, the
computation times and the loss of accuracy due to the 2-D
cross-section simplification make these methods undesirable.
Therefore, the “transient thermal circuit” model was proposed
in [7].the method is claimed to give very satisfactory results
even for the simplified forms.
In this paper, first optimum structure for permanent magnets
have found. Then “transient thermal circuit” is used for
thermal analysis of BLDC motor. Thermal analysis is carried
out for both solid and optimization model of permanent
magnet and temperature of different part of machine have
been calculated.
II. BLDC MODEL
Fig. 1 shows an analysis model of the four-pole surface-
mounted BLDC. Double-layer winding is used in this machine.
The gap length is 0.5 mm.
Table I gives the principal design data of the motor. The
rated output power is 30 kW. NdFeB magnets with the
thickness of 5mm were placed on the rotor core.
2016 24th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE)

Where τ is the period of the eddy current waveform, and

Ve is the volume of the permanent magnet. Fig. 2 shows eddy
current loss of PM for one pole.

IV. EDDY CURENT LOSS REDUCTION

The eddy current loss of magnet is decomposed into their
origins. The main origins of the magnet eddy current loss in the
PM motors can be considered as follows:
(a) Carrier harmonics of PWM inverters
Figure 1. 3D structure of BLDC Motor
(b) Variation of regional flux density by stator slot
openings
TABLE I. SPECIFICATIONS OF BLDC (c) Variation of total flux linkage by magnetic path
Number of poles 4 variations
Number of stator slots 36 The most common way of reducing the losses in magnets is
slot opening width 3 (mm) to divide them into smaller parts. By applying PM
Air-gap length 0.5(mm) segmentation with width of ω and length of l, the eddy current
The inner radius of stator 60 (mm)
loss were derived with respect to number of axial and radial
The outer radius of stator 190 (mm)
segments[3]:
Core length 76 (mm)

N θ N zV OL ω2
III. CALCULATION OF EDDY CURRENT LOSS Ptotal −m = . 2
.
16ρ  ω
1+   (4)

The three-dimensional (3D) magnetic field is analyzed by  2B + m B − m ( m ω ) 2 . 
the following equation:  
 1 Nθ  ϕ − ϕ− m  1 2
  + ( B −m − B + m ) ( m ω) 
2
 cos 2  + m − p αk
 N θ k =1  2  2 
∂  ∂ A  ∂  ∂A  ∂  ∂ A 
ν  + ν  + ν  = − J 0 − J M − J e (1)
∂x  ∂x  ∂y  ∂y  ∂z  ∂z  where ω=W/Nϴ and l=L/Nz, W is total pole-arc width of
magnets per pole, L is total axial length of magnets per pole,
Where A is the magnetic vector potential, ν is the Nϴ is number of pole-arc segments, Nz is number of axial
reluctivity, J0 is the current density of the winding and JM is the segments, and m is the harmonic number.
magnetizing current density of PM [8].
The eddy current density can be expressed by the following
equation:

 ∂A 
J e = −σ  + grad φ  (2)
 ∂t 
where Ф is the scalar electric potential.
The current density is determined by the magnetization
curve of NdFeB at a temperature of 140 C. The conductivity of
the PM is 0.8×106 S/m. The reluctivity is considered by the
magnetization curve of the iron core.
The eddy current loss in magnet is given as follows

1
t +τ / 2
 ( J e )2  Figure 2. Eddy current loss for one pole
(3)
PEddy =
τ /2 
t

Ve σ
dv dt

2016 24th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE)
Figure 3. eddy current loss of PMs with respect to number of segments
The relationship between magnets eddy current loss and
pole-arc segmentation is shown in Fig. 3. it is seen that the
eddy current loss decreases dramatically with the increase of
segments number.
V. PROPOSED STRUCTURE
There are some considerations that limit the number of
segments, such as the manufacturing cost, mechanical strength
of magnets especially in the surface-mounted BLDC. Also it
must be noted if the volume of magnet is less than a certain
size, then it may change the magnetic properties of magnets.
For this purpose, In [4] by analysis of different structure of
magnet with the fixed number of magnet segmentation, it was
concluded that two factors must be taken into account in
segmentation of magnet. First, magnet segmentation must be
applied so that along with cutting the eddy current paths, the
resistance of magnet would also increase as much as possible.
Second, the variation of flux density in the PM must be
smoothed so that the eddy current losses produced by flux
harmonics would be reduced as much as possible.
As a result, design of experiment (DOE) methodology is
used for extracting a seven-piece symmetrical structure with
optimized angular intervals between adjacent segments. In the
Fig.4 the proposed structure has been shown. As it is seen the
shifting angles of magnet is shown with ࢻ1, ࢻ2 and ࢻ3.
Optimization is often solved via surrogate models, that is,
through the construction of response surface models (RSM)
like polynomial regression. The experiments were performed
based on the response surface methodology (RSM), as a
statistical design of experiment approach, in order to
investigate the effect of parameters on the response variations.
In this investigation, the optimal shifting angles (factors) were
identified to minimize the eddy current losses in the PM.
According to the obtained results, the developed models are
statistically accurate and can be used for further analysis. The
final model for the eddy current loss in terms of un-coded
factors is shown below:
Ploss = 1.52105 − 0.03218α1 − 0.04716α 2 − 0.08256α 3 +
0.01035 ( α1 ) + 0.01377 ( α 2 ) + 0.01523 ( α 3 ) +
2 2 2
0.00108α1α 2 + 0.00019α1α 3 − 0.00119α 2 α 3 (5)
Figure 4. Proposed PM structure
The optimal values for ࢻ1, ࢻ2 and ࢻ3 were found by using
RSM. The table II shows the results obtained from the RSM
and FEM for ideal sinusoidal supply voltage, which are in
perfect agreement with each other. As it can be seen, the PM
losses decrease more by using the proposed structure than
traditional magnet segmentation.
VI. HEAT TRANSFER
Heat is transferred in the machine by means of conduction,
convection and radiation. Heat transfer by means of conduction
occurs in the solid parts of the machine such as steel, copper
and insulation. Heat transfer by convection appears in the air
and cooling water and in other fluids contained in the machine.
Heat transfer by radiation is generally insignificant in electrical
machines [9].
A. Conduction
Under steady-state conditions heat conduction is described
by two laws [9]. The first law states that the energy is
conserved; i.e. the divergence of the heat flux vector is equal to
the heat source density in a region:
∇.ϕ = ω (6)
Where ϕ is the heat flux vector which represents the heat
transfer rate per unit area in the normal direction and ω is the
heat source density. The law of conduction heat transfer states
that the heat flux at any point in an isotropic region is
proportional to the gradient of temperature:
ϕ = − K∇T (7)
Where K is the thermal conductivity and T is the
temperature. The minus sign satisfies the second law of
thermodynamics which says that the heat flows from the higher
temperature to the lower temperature regions. Substituting φ
from (7) into (6) results in Poisson’s equation
w
∇ 2T = − (8)
k
2016 24th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE)
TABLE II. OPTIMAL POINT AND LOSS RESULTS
α3 α2 α1 RSM result FEM result
(watt) (watt)
2.320 1.8392 1.8523 90.511 90.602
It should be noted that this equation is similar to the
equation describing the electrostatic field problems by
replacing T with the electric potential V and ω with the electric
charge density ρ, also k with the permittivity ε. It gives the
opportunity to solve thermal conduction problems by
electrostatic methods.
B. Convection
Heat removal by convection can be classified as natural and
forced (artificial) convection. Natural convection means that
neither an external blower nor any coolant liquid exists. The
heat dissipation by natural convection is defined with Newton’s
law
Q = α A(Ts − Ta ) (9)
Where Q is the convection heat transfer coefficient, A is the
area of the emitting surface, Ts and Ta are the temperatures of
emitting surface and ambient, respectively.
VII. THE DIFFUSION EQUATION
Considering conduction, the partial differential equation
describing the three dimensional flow of heat, so-called
diffusion equation
∂ 2 T ∂ 2T ∂ 2T
2 1 ∂T 1 ∂q
∇ T = 2 + 2 + 2 = − (10)
∂x ∂y ∂z ζ ∂t k ∂t
Where ζ= K/ρc is the diffusivity in m2/s, K is the thermal
conductivity in W/m◦C, c is the specific heat capacity in
kJ/koC, q is heat flow rate in watt, and ρ is the specific density
in kg/m3 [7]. It is obvious that due to three dimensional
complexity of electric machine structure, cause a very
complicated boundary value problem. Thus the construction of
a thermal equivalent circuit reduces the problem into an easier
one, which can be solved by means of a circuit analysis
software.
VIII. THE THERMAL EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT
The thermal circuit model is an analogy of an electric
circuit in which the generated heat is the current source and the
temperature is considered as the voltage. All loss sources are
represented as current sources in the model. All thermal
resistances which are expressed in ◦C/W are represented as
resistors and thermal capacitances are represented with
capacitors. In order to analyze the heat transfer in the machine,
an idealized geometry must be chosen that divided into basic
elements. These elements correspond approximately to areas,
which have thermal and physical uniformity, such as:
• temperature within the elements,
• heat generated within the elements,
• material properties of the elements,
• convection conditions through the surfaces of the
elements
The division of the machine into small elements is the
compromise between the model simplicity and the accuracy.
Hence, a good engineering judgment and the knowledge of the
properties of the used materials are essential. All the elements
of the machine are described by nodes, having an average
surface temperature with respect to the ambient and a thermal
capacitance. All nodes are connected to each other by
conduction or convection resistances. Assuming constant
thermal parameters and neglecting radiation, the linear
differential equation for each node becomes
dvi n
1
Pi = Ci + ( vi − v j ) (11)
dt j =0 Rij
Where Pi is heat loss in node i, Ci is thermal capacitance to
ambient, Rij is thermal resistance between nodes i and j and υi
is temperature in node i.
The nodes which are used to construct the thermal
equivalent circuit of the BLDC machine are indicated on the
scaled quarter model of the machine as shown in Fig.5.
The power loss sources are also indicated. It should be
noted that a current source is connected to nodes that is loss
source. The proper prediction of the heat transfer in the
machine depends on the accurate distribution of the losses. The
loss sources are:
• node 1,2 and 3- core losses in stator yoke (stator
divided to three node)
• node 4-copper losses in the front end windings,
• node 5-copper losses in the slot portion of windings,
• node 6-copper losses in the back end windings,
• node 8-magnet eddy-current losses,
• node 9-windage losses of rotor,
• node 10- eddy current losses of rotor core,
• node 15- bearing losses,
• node 16-windage losses,
Figure 5. Thermal resistances and nodes on a quarter model of the BLDC.
2016 24th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE)

The ambient is represented by node 0, the airgap is node 7g • heat transfer between airgap and end-air,
and the inner side of rotor is node 11, the tope side of shaft is • heat transfer from the rotating shaft to the ambient,
node 12, the center of shaft is node 13 and the bottom of shaft
is node 14. X. THERMAL PARAMETERS
The thermal parameters are calculated with the described
IX. METHOD OF CALCULATION methods in section IX and presented in Tables III and IV,
The thermal parameters mentioned in (11) that should be respectively, which including the variations of the convection
estimated are thermal capacitances and thermal conduction and resistances with respect to rotor speed and reduced air pressure.
convection resistances. The thermal capacitances are calculated
as
TABLE III. THERMAL CAPACITANCES.
Ci = ci ρ iVi (12)
C1,0=1.74 C2,0=6.4 C3,0=1.74
Where ci, ρi and Vi are the specific heat capacity, density
and the volume of the machine part represented by node i, C4,0=10.12 C5,0=41.02 C6,0=10.12
respectively. The specific heat capacity and specific density C8,0=0.06 C9,0=0.8 C10,0=1.9
values for the related materials are given in [7]. the best
assumption is considering only the axial and radial heat flows C11,0=0.8 C15,0=1.23 C16,0=1.45
and determining the conduction resistances accordingly. The
thermal convection resistance is calculated by using TABLE IV. THERMAL CONDUCTION AND CONVECTION RESISTANCES.
1 (13)
R ij = R1,2=2.8622 R2,3=2.8621 R1,4=0.5022
(α A ) ij
Where α is the heat transfer coefficient, and A the surface R4,5=13.22 R5,6=13.23 R2,5=0.05612
area between parts i and j. The calculation of the heat transfer R3,6=0.175 R9,10=10.652 R8,10=0.231
coefficients is not easy and depends on many approximations R16,7g=0.552 R4,7g=0.96 R5,7g=0.23
and the knowledge accumulated by previous experiments. The R6,7g=0.96 R8,7g=0.151 R9,7g=0.1419
types of heat transfer coefficients, which should be calculated
R11,7g=0.1422 R0,7g=6.433 R13,7g=0.589
in the machine, are;
R10,11=10.654 R11,14=0.421 R14,0=0.432
• heat transfer to the ambient air, R9,12=0.46 R12,13=0.1411 R13,0=0.0821
• heat transfer between stator, rotor, windings, epoxy R12,15=0.154 R13,15=0.1211 R10,16=0.081
parts, and frame to the end-air,
R10,13=0.711
• heat transfer between rotor and stator through the
airgap,
I11
128.7V C100
R910 10 R1011
144.2V
I8 0.1
R140 R1114
15Adc 14 C90
9
10.652 10.654 11
80.00V
0.432 0.421
C150 R810 C110
0.045 80Adc
R1215 R912 0.231
I9 0.065
15 12 0.046
85.85V 82.77V C80
0.154
R1213
0.46 130.5V 8 148.5V
0.005
R1315 0.1411 I7
R130 0.1211 R1013
20Adc 13
C160 65.32V R97g R87g R117g
0.0821 0.7112
R1016 0.1419 0.151 0.1422 42.1Adc
I10 0.075
145.4V
0.081
16 R137g R07g
Magnet node:
15Adc 0.589 6.433
148.5 oC
7g R67g
R167g
R47g 145.0V C50
0.96
R57g
0.552
0.23 214.0V
0.96 I6 2.001

R45 R56
4 5 6 210Adc

13.22 13.23

R14 R25
0.5022 0.05612 R36
25.00V
0.175
225.7V
222.6V

243.4V
R12 R23

1 2 3
219.0V 233.5V
2.8622 2.8621

I3 I4
I1 I2 75Adc 50Adc
40Adc C40 50Adc C10 C20 C30 I5 C60
0.5 0.087 0.32 0.087 40Adc 0.51

0
25
25

0V
Figure 6. The thermal equivalent circuit and temperature of the BLDC motor for solid pole
0
2016 24th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE)

I11
113.1V C100
R910 10 R1011
125.0V
I8 0.1
R140 R1114
15Adc 14 C90
9
10.652 10.654 11
71.92V
0.432 0.421
C150 R810 C110
0.045 60Adc
R1215 R912 0.1112
I9 0.065
15 12 0.046
77.56V 74.48V C80
0.154
R1213
0.46 114.6V 8 127.1V
0.005
R1315 0.1411 I7
R130 0.1211 R1013
20Adc 13
C160 59.34V R97g R87g R117g
0.0821 0.7112
R1016 0.1419 0.074 0.1422 22.65Adc
I10 0.075
126.2V

16
0.081
R137g R07g Magnet node:
15Adc 0.589 6.433 127.1 oC
7g R67g
R167g
R47g 126.9V C50
0.96
R57g
0.552
0.23 189.0V
0.96 I6 2.001

R45 R56
4 5 6 200Adc

13.22 13.23

R14 R25
0.5022 0.05612 R36
25.00V
0.175
195.4V
192.9V

210.0V
R12 R23

1 2 3
192.9V 201.9V
2.8622 2.8621

I3 I4
I1 I2 60Adc 40Adc
35Adc C40 40Adc C10 C20 C30 I5 C60
0.5 0.087 0.32 0.087 35Adc 0.51

0
25
25

0V
0

Figure 7. The thermal equivalent circuit and temperature of the BLDC motor for optimized segmentation pole

The thermal equivalent circuit constructed with the International Symposium on Power Electronics,Electrical Drives,
calculated thermal parameters and the resultant temperature Automation and Motion,pp.88-89,2010.
values for the machine parts will be calculated by analyzing [2] Shuangxia Niu, S. L.Ho, W.N. Fu, and Jianguo Zhu, “Eddy Current
Reduction in High-Speed Machines and Eddy Current Loss Analysis
the circuit with Psim/PSpice. Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 illustrate the With Multislice Time-Stepping Finite-Element Method” IEEE
thermal equivalent circuit of the BLDC motor and Transactions on Magnetics, vol.48, no.2,pp.1007-1010,
temperature of each nodes for both solid and optimized February.2012
model of permanent magnet, respectively. It can be seen that [3] Wan-Ying Huang, Adel Bettayeb, Robert Kaczmarek, and Jean-
temperature of magnet in the proposed model reduced more Claude Vannier, “Optimization of Magnet Segmentation for
than 21oC, just by using magnet loss reduction. Reductionof Eddy-Current Losses in Permanent MagnetSynchronous
Machine,” IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION,
VOL. 25, NO. 2,pp.381-387, JUNE 2010
XI. CONCLUSION [4] Abbas Nazari Marashi, K. Abbaszadeh, Farhad Rezaee Alam,
“Analysis and Reduction of Magnet Eddy Current Losses in Surface
Segmenting the PM in circumferential and axial direction Mounted Permanent Magnet Machines”, ICEE 2014
reduces the PM eddy current losses strongly, but as there is a [5] Yujiao Zhang, Jiangjun Ruan, Tao Huang, Xiaoping Yang,
problem with increasing the number of magnet “ Calculation of Temperature Rise in Air-cooled Induction Motors
Through 3-D Coupled Electromagnetic Fluid-Dynamical and Thermal
segmentation, a new structure of magnet segmentation with Finite-Element Analysis”, Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on, 2012
constant number of segments was proposed in this paper.
[6] D.A. Staton and E. So. “Determination of optimal thermal parameters
Also DOE method was used to optimize this new structure. for brushless permanent magnet motor design”. IEEE IAS’98, 1998
With this optimum structure, PM eddy current loss in BLDC [7] Funda Sahin, “DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A HIGH-
motor was reduced more than 46.2 percent in comparison SPEED AXIAL-FLUX PERMANENT-MAGNET MACHINE” phd
with solid poles. thesis, geboren te Van, Turkije,2001
[8] Jafari-Shiadeh, S. M., and Mohammad Ardebili. "Analysis and
Thermal characteristics of permanent magnet motor is comparison of axial-flux permanent-magnet brushless-DC machines
very important to prevent PMs demagnetization risk. with fractional-slot concentrated-windings." Power Electronics, Drive
Thermal analysis with using “transient thermal circuit” Systems and Technologies Conference (PEDSTC), 2013 4th. IEEE,
confirmed that the temperature distribution within the PMs [9] E.S. Hamdi. “Design of Small Electrical Machines”. John Wiley and
was reduced about 21oC. Sons, 1994

REFERENCES
[1] Klötzl, J, M. Pyc, and D. Gerling, “Permanent Magnet Loss
Reduction in PMMachinesusing Analytical and FEMCalculation,”

View publication stats