Finite-Element Models of Electrical Machines and their Calculation

Christoph Schlensok, Thomas Scheermesser, Dirk van Riesen, and Gerhard Henneberger Institut fr Elektrische Maschinen, RWTH Aachen, Germany

Summary The Department of Electrical Machines (IEM) at Aachen University (RWTH) works on all kinds of electrical machines. There are ''classical'' machines like induction machines with squirrel cage rotor and synchronous machines as well as switched reluctance machines and transverse flux machines, a spherical motor and linear motors. All these machines need to be calculated in some way using FEM. At the IEM ANSYS is used on the one hand for calculation but especially for modeling since an own software called iMOOSE for FEM-calculation is being developed in the past few years and parts of it are open source software. The models calculated are 2D and 3D and reach up to element numbers near 1 million. This contribution will deliver an insight of three projects at the IEM using ANSYS for modeling and iMOOSE for calculation. There are of course several other projects next to these. The projects regarded are a spherical motor, which is a multi-coordinate direct drive with three degrees of freedom developed for robotic applications, an induction machine with squirrel cage rotor used as a power-steering drive and an induction furnace for industrial applications. .

Keywords Electrical Machines, Modeling, Open Source Software iMOOSE, Electromagnetic Calculation, Structural-Dynamic Calculation, Acoustic Calculation

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0.

Introduction

The development of electromagnetic devices such as machines, transformers, heating devices and other kinds of actuators confronts engineers with several problems. For the design of an optimized geometry and the prediction of the operational behavior an accurate knowledge of the dependencies of the field quantities inside the magnetic circuit is necessary. Electrical machines need to be optimized in several manners. If the noise has to be taken into account, the acoustic behavior has to be predicted. The torque and force behavior needs to be determined and losses estimated. The physical correlations like the Maxwell equations are well known for many years, but the analytical calculation methods force a lot of neglect and simplifications. Correction factors were determined by practical experience to consider miscellaneous effects. Upcoming in the seventies of the last century, the Finite-Element Method (FEM) is today state-of-the-art for the calculation of structural-dynamical, thermal and, of course, electromagnetic problems. With the improvements of the performance of personal computers and workstations the models have become three-dimensional with the number of elements increasing. The bandwidth of possible applications is advancing steadily and research projects are opening up new perspectives for the development of electrical machines. Static and transient finite-element calculations of the electro-magnetic field enable the designers to optimize electrical devices with regard to the torque-to-mass ratio and the dynamic, thermal and acoustic behavior. Furthermore, the Finite-Element method allows for the development and optimization of new devices without the necessity of extensive prototyping. In this paper an overview of electromagnetic devices:w which are object of research at the IEM is given for which ANSYS is used for modeling and iMOOSE [1] for the calculation. The machines are a spherical motor, an induction furnace and an induction machine with squirrel cage. The modeling of these machines, the electromagnetic calculation and some machine specific computations are discussed.

1.

Modeling of Electrical Machines using ANSYS

Finite Element models for the electromagnetic calculation of electrical machines consist only of the electrical and magnetic important parts of the machine, i.e. the iron laminations, the windings, the permanent magnets (if part of the machine) and the air, which surrounds the machine and is inbetween the active parts of the machine. 1.1 2D Models

An example for a 2-dimensional model of an electrical machine is the induction machine with squirrel cage rotor shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1:

Example for a Modeled Electrical Machine: Induction Machine with Squirrel Cage Rotor

The figure shows 2 pole pitches of the machine. The stator has a three phase copper winding and the rotor bars are made of aluminum. The grey regions are iron and the white ones air. All these parts of the machine are modeled and meshed using ANSYS. The model has approximately 25,000 first order triangular elements. All electrical machines which do not change their geometry in axial direction and are long enough, so that the front leakages are negligible, can be calculated and therefore modeled in 2D. The air gap of the machine has three layers of elements which is ensured by fitting three areas into it. The reason for this is the exactness of the torque and force calculation in the air gap. The Maxwellstress tensor used here requires in case of nodal vector potential nodes which only are assigned to one material, i.e. air. The elements of the middle air gap layer fulfill this condition.
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1.2

3D Models

3-dimensional modeling is necessary if the geometry of the machine varies in all three dimensions and cannot be broken down to 2-dimensional symmetry. There are several examples of 3D models at the IEM. Fig. 2 shows a spherical motor, a skewed induction machine with squirrel cage, and an induction furnace.

Fig. 2:

Examples for 3-Dimensional Models: Spherical Motor, Skewed Induction Machine, Induction Furnace

The air gaps of the 3-diminsional models do not need so much extra treatment as those of 2D since the vector potential is connected to the edges of the elements and not to the nodes. The analysis of the Maxwell-tensor is less critical here. The model of the spherical motor is used for electromagnetic calculation of the cogging torque due to the positioning of the stator poles. The model has about 900,000 tetrahedral first order elements. The rotor is turned into various positions. The air gap between the stator and rotor therefore has to be modeled in such a way, that it can be glued together again at these positions. The induction machine with squirrel cage is also calculated electromagnetically. Since the rotor currents are not known, the machine needs to be calculated transient using impressed currents in the stator. The air gap is divided into two layers. Each layer belongs either to the stator or to the rotor. This way there are two areas which are moved virtually by using a double node layer and setting a new boundary condition at each time step. This method is called the lock-step method [2]. The number of first order tetrahedral elements is therefore held very low at approximately 150,000.

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The depicted model of the induction furnace is used for structural dynamic and acoustic calculations. The exciting forces are calculated using a different model and computing it electro-magnetically. The electromagnetic model has about 480,000 first-order tetrahedral elements, the mechanical about 40,000 first-order brick elements. The licenses, the IEM holds, only allow computation up to 128,000 elements and nodes. Not only for this reason own processing tools were implemented but also for the demands of the special applications. By now there are several solvers implemented in iMOOSE for 2D and 3D static and transient electromagnetic, thermal, structure-dynamic and acoustic calculation. A very powerful post-processing tool iMOOSE.trinity is part of the open source software as well. This way the developers are able to improve and extend the software if necessary. Comercial tools like ANSYS do not offer this possibilty.

2.
2.1

Calculation of Electrical Machines with iMOOSE

The Solver Environment iMOOSE

The three machines are calculated with the solver environment iMOOSE. iMOOSE stands for Innovative Modern Object-Oriented Solver Environment. iMOOSE is intended as a general purpose application framework for the development of Finite Element solvers and related tools. It mainly focuses on electromagnetic problems arising e.g. from the design of electrical machines. iMOOSE contains solvers for the 2- and 3-dimensional calculation of static, time-harmonic and transient electromagnetic fields. The results include the distribution of the magnetic field and the current densities. Additionally, integral quantities such as torque, forces and fluxes can be computed. Only an external tool for model generation and meshing is required. An important part of iMOOSE is iMOOSE.trinity, a very powerful 3-dimensional visualization and postprocessing tool. By means of a scripting language a graphical representation of results can be obtained, as well as further post-processing can be performed, e.g. cuts, derivatives, integrations. iMOOSE is being developed since 1997 at the Department of Electrical Machines (IEM) of Aachen University, Germany. The core and main applications are released as open source software. 2.2 Spherical Motor

The spherical motor is a multi-coordinate direct drive with three degrees of freedom [3]. The spherical rotor is able to rotate in three axes, a rotation around the vertical axis and a declination in rot- and rot- direction (Fig. 3). Possible applications are machine tools and robotic devices, utilizing the advantages of this high-dynamic direct drive which contains no mechanical transmission elements like gears. The motor consists of a permanent-magnet rotor sphere and a stator hemisphere with 96 stator poles. The guiding of the rotor is realized by a hydrostatic bearing to achieve high stiffness and low friction. The stator hemisphere and the stator poles are made of a soft-magnetic composite (SMC) in order to reduce eddy-current losses in all three dimensions. The arrangement of the poles has a decisive influence on the torque characteristic. The current-dependent torque is calculated with a combined numerical-analytical method [4]. The static cogging torque has to be calculated with a finiteelement model of the complete motor geometry. The model is shown in Fig. 2.
mounting plate rot rot rotor sphere

stator poles permanent magnets stator yoke

hydrostatic bearing

Fig. 3: Basic structure of the spherical motor

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Combined numerical and analytical calculation method Looking at Fig. 3, one can imagine, that the motor geometry requires large finite-element models with high element numbers. As a result the meshing and computational time is very high. Therefore it is not reasonable to calculate the torque with a finite-element model of the whole geometry for different cases of current supply in order to optimize the stator pole arrangements. On the other hand the geometry is too complicated to calculate the torque analytically. Therefore a combined numericalanalytical calculation method has been developed for the calculation of the total current-dependent torque of the spherical motor. The four most important steps of the method are: Preparation of a finite-element model of one stator pole with its nearest neighbors and appropriate rotor magnets, Numerical calculation of the current-dependent thrust forces of the regarded stator pole, Approximation of the thrust-force characteristic using trend functions, Analytical calculation of the total torque using the trend functions. Five different spherical Finite-Element models were created to investigate the thrust forces caused by impressed currents to one pole in the model. The models consist of 7 up to 9 poles and differ in the positions of the neighboring poles, which surround the current driven pole. Fig. 4 shows the model in case that this pole is located at the border of the stator sphere.

current-driven coil stator yoke stator pole

permanent magnet

rel rel rotor yoke

Fig. 4: Finite-Element Model of a Motor Section Fig. 5 shows the calculated - and -components of the thrust force of the spherical motor. They result from the difference of a calculation at a current of 4 A and a calculation at 0 A, so they do not include the cogging forces.

Fig. 5: Calculated Thrust Forces F and F

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It is assumed, that the generated thrust force of one stator pole only depends on the position of this pole above the permanent magnets in the rotor and not on the positions of the neighboring poles. The total torque of the spherical motor is calculated by multiplying the thrust-force contribution of each pole with the corresponding distance between the pole and the pivot axle. Therefore, the thrust-force characteristics, which were calculated with FEM are approximated with trend functions depending on the pole position and the current. Fig. 6 shows the total torque around the normal axis T depending on the rotation about the normal axis and the declination of the normal axis at a current of 3 A. Using this calculation method, various stator-pole arrangements were investigated concerning the achievable torque.

Fig. 6: Total Torque T in Normal Direction Calculation of the cogging torques

Fig. 7: Flux-Density Distribution

It has to be taken into account that the cogging torque depends on the complete geometry of stator and rotor. For the calculation of this torque a complete finite-element model of the spherical motor has to be built. The cogging torque is calculated at various different rotor positions. For this reason the meshed stator and rotor model are moved against each other, glued in the air gap, and then the air gap is remeshed. The flux-density distribution for one rotor position is shown in Fig. 7. The pole shoes show high saturation at nearly 2.5 T. The complete description of the motor can be found in [5]. 2.3 Induction Machine with Squirrel Cage

The next example of an electrical machine being an object of research at the IEM is an induction machine with squirrel cage used as a power-steering drive in cars. The consumer satisfaction requires that the power steering is not being heard in the passenger cab. The induction machine is calculated acoustically in order to find the sources for the noise emission of the complete drive. The float chart in Fig. 8 shows the main stages of the calculation. At first an electromagnetic computation is performed. From its results the force excitation on the stator teeth is calculated. The forces are transformed to a structural-dynamic model of the machine. With it the deformation is computed. The deformation is then transformed onto an acoustic FE-model of the machine. Finally the air-borne noise is calculated.

electromagnetic calculation forces structure-dynamic calculation deformation acoustic calculation noise

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Fig. 8: Float Chart of Acoustic Calculation Electromagnetic Calculation

Fig. 9: Flux-Density Distribution

Fig. 9 shows the flux-density distribution in the electromagnetic FE-model for one of the 120 calculated time steps. The 3-dimensional calculation of an induction machine with squirrel cage can either be performed transient or static. The transient 3-dimensional calculation is very time consuming. The model has about 300,000 elements and the calculation shows a transient phenomenon which has to die out before a number of steps can be analyzed for the further computation. For this reason the static calculation is chosen. The cause is, that the currents in the rotor bars are not known. So a 2dimensional transient calculation is performed at first. This takes only a day or two depending on the computer. The rotor-bar currents can be derived from this 2D-calculation. The mistake done not regarding the skewing of the rotor in 2D is very small as investigations have shown [6]. The rotor and stator currents can now be impressed into the static model of the machine. The rotor has to be rotated in each time step by separating rotor and stator, turning the rotor, and gluing it with the stator again. These operations are performed in ANSYS. Structural-Dynamic Calculation In a next step the calculation of the deformation of the machine due to the forces acting on the stator teeth at a certain frequency is performed. The force-density exciting the stator teeth is calculated for each time step of the static 3D electromagnetic calculation using the Maxwell stress tensor method. Fig. 10 shows the real part of the force-density for 420 Hz. The effect of skewing the rotor can be seen very impressively. The maximum excitation is reached at the up running edge of the stator teeth.

Fig. 10: Force-Density Distribution for 420 Hz Fig. 11: View of the Mechanical Model In order to calculate the deformation the force-density excitation of each stator tooth element which is positioned next to the air gap has to be analyzed in the frequency domain [7]. The Fast-Fourier Transformation (FFT) is used for this reason. The force-density excitation for each frequency of interest is now separately transformed from the electromagnetic model of the machine to the mechanical model. The mechanical model depicted in Fig. 11 includes all parts of the machine. Next to the stator and the rotor which are now very strongly simplified in order to reduce the number of elements drastically, the shaft, the case caps, the bearings and the housing are modeled. The air in the machine is not modeled since it has no significant effect on the deformation of the structure as a gas.

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Fig. 12: Scalar Display for 520 Hz (4 order) Fig. 13: Exaggerated Display for 620 Hz (6 order) The solver now used to calculate the deformation is also a product of project work at the IEM. The real and imaginary parts of the deformation of the mechanical model are computed. The real parts at 520 Hz and 620 Hz are shown in Fig. 12 and Fig. 13. Fig 12 shows the deformation scalar and Fig. 13 exaggerated. The machine is mounted on the one side of the stator. The side is fixed in the computation and cannot be moved. Acoustic Calculation At last the acoustic noise is calculated. Again a new model of the machine is needed. The model is a boundary-element model (BEM) consisting only of the outer boundary of the mechanical model as shown in Fig. 14. For each frequency of interest the sound pressure is calculated with a BEM-solver developed at the IEM. Fig. 15 exemplarily shows the sound pressure distribution on an evaluation sphere at 940 Hz.

th

th

Fig. 14: Acoustic Model 2.4 Induction Furnace

Fig. 15: Sound Pressure in [dB] at 940 Hz

The third example for an ANSYS meshed FE-problem calculated with iMOOSE solvers is an induction furnace for industrial applications. The furnace is calculated electromagnetically in order to compute the Lorentz forces exciting the primary winding. The model shown above in Fig. 2 is a 30 model of the furnace since the joke is separated into six bars. For the electromagnetic calculation the air has to be modeled completely, which is not shown. Also not depicted is the non-magnetic ceramic protected crucible which holds the melt. The melt represents the secondary winding of the short-circuited transformer. Although only a 30 model is regarded 480,000 elements are required to reflect the penetration depth of the magnetic field in the melt and the coils correctly. The alternating fields in coils and melt result in eddy currents. In the melt these currents heat up the steel and melt it. In the coils extra losses are produced. Electromagnetic Calculation The electromagnetic model has to be calculated either using a time-harmonic or a transient solver. Since the maximal amplitudes of the flux-density reached in the calculation do not exceed 0.8 T timeharmonic solving is reasonable and used since it is less time consuming than the transient. Fig. 16 shows the flux-density distribution and Fig. 17 the current-density distribution in coils and melt for the nominal point of operation of the furnace at 250 Hz and 18 kA [8]. The operational frequency range is from 0 Hz to 250 Hz at constant 18 kA. Investigations have shown that the frequency only affects the result of the current-density distribution and therefore the Lorentz forces marginally. For this reason the results of the nominal point of operation are used for all frequencies. In Fig. 17 the penetration depth can be seen quite well. The penetration depth of the eddy currents in the melt is formed sufficiently by the elements. There are about 4 layers of elements which carry eddy currents. The winding has much greater eddy currents (about factor 10). This effect has several reasons. On the one hand the magnetic field is only carried by the joke on the back of the coils. This means that the field has to be held by air on the other side. The coils in turn act magnetically spoken
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like air as well. This is one reason for the super elevation of the current density on the inner side of the currents. Next to this the skin effect causes the current to the outside of the winding. A last simple effect is that the inner radius and therefore the resistance of the coil is smaller than the outer.

Fig. 16: Flux-Density Distribution Calculation of the Lorentz Forces

Fig. 17: Current-Density Distribution in Coils and Melt

The current-density distribution is reflected in the Lorentz forces as Fig. 18 depicts. The maximum forces are reached on the inner sides of the coils where the maximum current density appears. The Lorentz force is some orders of magnitudes larger than the magnetic surface-force density at the boundary layer of two different materials. So the surface-force density is negligible.

Fig. 18: Lorentz-Force Distribution on the Windings of the Coil

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Further Calculations In order to calculate the induction furnace acoustically a model of the half furnace including all structural parts of it is built as shown in Fig. 2. The model is made of brick and shell elements. The iMOOSE solvers are not able yet to solve problems built of shell elements. For this reason the further calculations are performed in ANSYS again.

3.

Conclusion

The paper shows an insight of projects at the Department of Electrical Machines (IEM) at Aachen University (RWTH) which use ANSYS for modeling and the own open-source software iMOOSE for calculation. The models calculated require large ANSYS licenses due to the large number of elements. The projects presented are: a spherical motor, an induction machine with squirrel cage, and an induction furnace. All models are calculated electromagnetically. In case of the spherical motor a 3D static calculation is performed, the induction machine requires due to the squirrel cage a transient calculation and the not saturated induction furnace allows time-harmonic calculation. For all three models the result is the flux-density distribution. The post processing steps for the spherical motor are the calculation of the torque using FEM and an analytical approach and calulating the cogging torque. The induction machine is calculated structuraldynamically and acoustically and the induction furnaces Lorentz force excitation is computed. The three applications are only a few examples of a large number of electric machines and devices designed and optimized at the IEM using FEM. The homepage of the IEM gives some more information [9]. References [1] G. Arians, T. Bauer, C. Kaehler, W. Mai, C. Monzel, D. van Riesen, and C. Schlensok: ''Innovative modern object-oriented solving environment - iMOOSE'', Available: http://www.imoose.de, Online C. Kaehler, G. Henneberger: Eddy-Current Computation on a One-Pole Pitch Model of Synth chronous Claw-Pole Alternator, Conference Record of the 15 International Conference on Electrical Machines (ICEM), Brugges, Belgium, August 2002 M. Weck, T. Reinartz, G. Henneberger, R. De Doncker: Design of a spherical motor with three degrees of freedom, Annals of the DIRP, Vol. 49, 2000 rd T. Busch, G. Henneberger: Designing methods for multi-coordinate drives, Proceedings of 3 International Symposium on Linear Drives for Industry Applications (LDIA), Nagano, Japan, 2001 T. Busch: Entwicklung von Mehrkoordinaten-Direktantrieben mit zwei und drei Freiheitsgraden, PHD-Thesis, Aachen, Germany, 2002 M. Johnen, C. Kaehler, G. Henneberger: Comparison of 2D and 3D Transient FEM Calculath tions of a Skewed Induction Machine, Proceedings of the 14 International Conference on the Computation of Magnetic Fields (COMPUMAG), Saratoga Springs, USA, 2003 C. Schlensok, G. Schneeloch, G. Henneberger: Analysis of Stator-Teeth Forces in Induction th Machines with Squirrel Cages using 2D-FEM, Proceedings of the 6 International Symposium on Electric and Magnetic Fields (EMF), Aachen, Germany, 2003 D. van Riesen, G. Henneberger: Combining Electrical and Mechanical Analysis in an Objectth Oriented Package for the Coupled Calculation of an Induction Furnace, Proceedings of the 10 International IGTE Symposium on Numerical Field Calculation in Electrical Engineering (IGTE), Graz, Austria, 2002 Institut fr Elektrische Maschinen RWTH Aachen, http://www.iem.rwth-aachen.de, Online

[2]

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[5] [6]

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[8]

[9]

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