Axial Flux Plastic Multi-Disc Brushless PM Motors: Performance Assessment

F. PROFUMO, A. TENCONI, M. CERCHIO Politecnico di Torino Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica Industriale Torino, ITALY francesco.profumo@polito.it
Abstract A dedicated brushless PM motor prototype for a stratospheric aircraft propeller drive has been manufactured and experimentally tested. The motor has a non-conventional axial flux multi-disc structure; the magnetic circuit is almost ironless and the mechanical structure makes wide use of composite plastic materials. The experimental tests demonstrate the motor functionality and performances, basically confirming the expected motor characteristics. The prototype performances are assessed considering as reference the conventional radial flux motors. Index Terms Axial Flux Machines, Performance Assessment, Synchronous Motors, Permanent Magnets.

J. F. EASTHAM, P. C. COLES EnigmaTEC Ltd Bath, UK jfeastham@aol.com composite plastic materials, that also reduce the motor weight [3], [4].

MDAFM

I. INTRODUCTION HELIPLAT is a stratospheric unmanned aircraft proposed for use as telecommunication platforms in the HeliNet Project, funded by the Information Society Technologies Programme (IST), within the European Union Fifth RTD framework [1], [2]. HeliPlat employs eight propellers, each of them is directly driven by a single motor, supplied by a solar cells - fuel cells energy system. The aircraft must be able to take-off by itself, climb to the destination altitude (1725 km) and than to keep a constant height in a turning flight to achieve a geo-stationary position: full power is required during take off and climbing to the target altitude, but only about of the full power is enough to maintain level flight. Since there are no reduction gears between the motor and the propellers, the application requires a low-speed/high-torque duty, the best possible specific torque and high efficiency. In addition, the high efficiency is required over the complete and wide power range. Furthermore the motor dimensions are limited by space allocation constraints (Fig.1). Hence, a dedicated machine design is needed to satisfy the specific application requirements. Brushless permanent magnet technology and an unconventional multi-disc arrangement using an axial flux structure have been considered as the most promising solution [5], [6]. Furthermore, in order to increase the motor efficiency, especially at low load, the magnetic circuit is almost ironless to avoid iron losses; the structural function of the iron in the conventional machines has been replaced by advanced

Fig.1: HeliPlat motor allocation (Courtesy of DIASP). The motor prototype has been manufactured and characterized by means of laboratory experimental tests. The performance assessment of the Multi Disc Axial Flux Motor prototype is presented referring to brushless motors commercially available. II. 2. MULTI-DISC AXIAL FLUX MOTOR (MD_AFM) A. Basic design considerations Weight and energy efficiency of all the payloads and electrical subsystems strongly affect the aircraft mission. For this reason, the propulsion system must maximize the torque density and give a high efficiency over a wide working range. To satisfy these fundamental requirements, a dedicated machine has been developed starting from the following basic design considerations: Permanent magnet brushless machines - the high torque density and efficiency of these motors is well known. Axial flux multi-disc structure - this structure allows the increase of the ratio between the torque producing surface and the quantity of active material, particularly when "flat" geometries are required [5], [7], [9]; furthermore the modular construction makes possible to vary the

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designed output torque by changing the number of discs. Quasi-ironless magnetic circuit - the proposed solution requires only two rotor end-discs made of iron for the magnetic flux path closure [4] as shown in Fig.2. The adoption of an almost ironless magnetic structure eliminates the iron losses due to the main flux (independent of load), hence it offers an efficiency advantage, extending the range of optimal operation at low loads (drawback: large magnet thickness are required to push the flux through the long ironless path). Plastic composite as structural material - advanced engineering plastic materials provide the required mechanical and thermal properties to realize the low weight loss-less discs [3], [4], [5] (drawback: unconventional construction difficulties have to be faced, such as adhesive joints, machining problems, etc.).

Windings Chassis

Permanent Magnets Iron for Flux Path Enclosure

Magnets Disc (Rotor)

Windings Disc (Stator)

Shaft

Fig.3: Axial Flux Machine 3D section The stator discs interleave the rotating magnet discs. These are again made of plastic and provide the support matrix for a set of stator coils. The construction is therefore modular and one module consists of a rotor and a stator disc as shown in Fig.4.

B. Motor Structure The multi-disc motor structure consists of 4 rotor discs interleaved by 3 stator discs. The rotor of this machine uses a number of non-magnetic plastic discs that provides the support structure for an array of permanent magnets of alternating polarity, forming a 16-pole motor. Iron rings are located in the two end rotor discs, which rotate with the magnets and close the flux path. The permanent magnets have the same circumferential position on each disc. The flux goes along the machine axially through a line of magnets; then it goes circumferentially in the end iron ring to the next pole and finally comes back along the machine through an adjacent line of magnets. A drawing of the flux path is shown in Fig.2 and a 3D section in Fig.3.
Composite Materials Internal Rotor Discs External Rotor Discs

(a)
Fig.4: Internal rotor disc (a) and stator disc (b)

(b)

Axial Flux Path

NS

NS

NS

NS

Stator Discs
S N NS NS NS NS S N

Permanent Magnet

Coil

Permanent Magnet with Iron Ring

The iron-less disc machine structure leads to air-gap slot-less concentrated stator windings that should ideally be planar without coil end winding crossovers. Among the different possible arrangements, concentrated type windings have been chosen for the relative simplicity of manufacture; in order to improve the winding factor, the second harmonic of the m.m.f. is used instead of the first harmonic. As a consequence, the three coils of the winding occupy the same arc as 4 poles (3 coils 4 poles). In this way, the winding factor produced is 0.716, which is rather high for concentrated air-gap windings. The concentrated windings have a relatively poor copper exploitation due to the long end connections but, on the other hand, there is much room for copper due to the absence of iron, hence the copper losses can be kept quite small. Each one of the eight propellers requires the following motor performance: Rated power: 2250 W @ 1000 rpm; Efficiency: 92 % @ full load - 90% @ 1/2 load; External diameter: <300 mm;

Fig.2: Axial Flux Machine Structure

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 Case temperature: 90C (the motor is fixed to the wings that are made of carbon fibber: this material can not withstand temperature higher than 1000C). The first motor prototype has been manufactured: the overall machine is shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 6: The stator coil The stator coils are glued into the plastic stator half discs that provide the mechanical support. The glue used has been chosen with particular care since Ketron Peek is quite difficult and a good gap cure is required for this application (this means practically that a medium viscosity glue must be used). Furthermore the heat sources of the motor are concentrated in the coils therefore the glue must also have the capability of withstanding high temperatures. The glue used for the assembly of the stator discs belongs to the two component Polyurethane family. This glue has good thermal properties since it can operate continuously up to 120C. The rotor is made of 4 plastic discs, the two internal discs support the PMs, while the two external support the PMs and the iron rings for the flux path closure. The permanent magnets have a typical Brem of 1.2T and a coercive force of 890kA/m, they can withstand a maximum working temperature of 150C and have zinc coating. The magnets have been made with stepped sides to give better fixing into the plastic disks; this solution leads to a more reliable assembly of the discs because the integrity is not based entirely on glue joints. Fig. 7 shows the assembly of the internal rotor disc: in particular it can be seen that the stepped NdFeB permanent magnets are inserted between two half plastic discs to ensure mechanical strength.

Fig. 5: Multi-Disc Axial Flux Machine Prototype C. Motor Construction Details The motor has been manufactured adopting quite new approaches in the material selection and design of the mechanical structure. One of the most important novelties of this motor consists of the application of a plastic material for the manufacture of the motor discs. The choice of Ketron Peek from a number of different kinds of advanced engineering plastic materials has been described in [3], the table in Appendix A summarize the characteristics of the materials used for the prototype realisation. The stator consists of three 290 mm diameter discs containing the coils. Each stator is divided into two half discs so that the rotor can first be completely constructed and balanced and then the stator discs can be inserted. The strands of wire forming the coil conductors have been made of small diameter wire to reduce the eddy currents, induced by the main air-gap flux. The final choice of the 0.4 mm wire diameter is the trade off between low eddy current losses and the ease of hand manufacturing the coils (Fig. 6). Since the wire is self-polymerising, the coils after winding have been baked in a oven at 180 C

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reduction of about 6% in the flux and induced emf. The compensation for this by increasing the current by about 6% gives the same torque and output with an increased loss of about 12% and a reduction in the efficiency of about 0.6%. Since the prototype has to prove the basic design ideas, (it will be not embedded on the aircraft) the non-critical parts of the prototype have been realized with conventional material and solutions: steel bearings, aluminum flanges and housing etc.

III. EXPERIMENTAL TESTS The motor prototype has been bench tested in "normal" environmental conditions to assess the performance against analytical forecasts. The tests can be subdivided as follows: Functional tests to verify the basic technical solutions adopted in the motor construction; Motor parameter estimation tests to validate the FEM analysis and the parameter computation to tune the design procedure for further optimisation; Thermal tests to verify the motor rated performance and the thermal behaviour of the mechanical properties of the plastic materials and the resins used to assembly the stator and rotor discs. A. Functional Tests Beside the routine tests on winding resistance and isolation, the generator test (back-emf waveform) shows the pure sinusoidal nature of the motor, according to the 5/6 magnet pitch design. The analysis of the waveform acquired has revealed a 3% content of third harmonic. The result of the acquisition for the phase back emf at 400 rpm is showed in Fig.9.

Fig. 7: Rotor Disc To join the magnets to the two plastic discs a two-component low-density epoxy resin has been used. The external discs were manufactured using Ketron Peek glass fibre reinforced plastic with better mechanical properties with respect to the natural Ketron Peek used in the internal rotor discs. In these discs NdFeB stepped permanent magnets were inserted together with iron ring for flux closure. A careful design of the mechanical structure of the external discs has been made to withstand the unbalanced attractive action of the permanent magnets on the external discs. In the prototype the estimated force of more than 700N has not lead to measurable deformation of the discs. To limit the deformation effects of the permanent magnets on the plastic discs, the shaft has been made from a Titanium alloy with a two-diameter structure (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8: Rotor Assembly From the initial design the electromagnetic structure has been slightly changed, increasing the 1 mm clearance air gap to 1.5mm to reduce the uncertainty level about mechanical interference due to possible heat deformation of the plastic materials under thermal load. This has modified the initial 51mm (clearance + magnets + windings) to 54mm resulting in the

Fig. 9: Acquired phase back emf B. Motor parameter estimation tests The MD_AFM has no saliency so that the d and q values are

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almost identical and the equivalent circuits in the conventional dand q-axes representation use the same phase impedance.

iq

R ph

Ld=Lq

vq
Fig. 10: MD_AFM q axis model

Hence the parameters to be experimentally determined are: the constants KV and KT (where KT = the stator resistance; the stator inductance.

3 KV); Fig. 12: 8.7Amps - Torque vs. angular position The small deformations near the zero crossing are due to a non-perfect mechanical connection (caused by the cone keys) and are not caused by a lack of motor symmetry. The results (Fig.13) allow the determination of the Torque constant KT=3 Nm/Arms; the value is coherent with the constant KV measured at no load. In the picture is showed the comparison between the experimental measurements made with both the supply configurations described in Fig 11 and the FEM results obtained for the final prototype configuration.
T orque vs Peak Current

The proportionality constant measured at 20 C is KV=1.73 Vs/rad (referred to line-to-line rms voltage), whilst the measurement with the MD_AFM operating as a generator at thermal steady state (about 100C in the windings) has gave KV=1.6 Vs/rad (7% less). The locked rotor current and torque test measures the torque against angular position at zero or very low speed [5], feeding the prototype stator windings with a DC voltage; the test has been made for the two supply configurations (1), (2) depicted in Fig.11.

d q b

a q IDC
3

IDC d a c V

MEGA 1.5mm 1.17T 25

(2)

(1)

c V
I DC

IDC/2 (2)

20

Torque [Nm]

( 1 ) I peak = 2

I peak = I DC

15

Fig. 11: Phase motor connections for the locked rotor torque test The measurements have been made at 0.9 rpm in order to have a negligible production of back EMF. Fig. 12 shows the torque measurements: trace 2 represents the DC current (8.7 A), trace 1 is the measured torque (torquemeter constant = 20).

10

0 0 2 4 6 Peak Current [A] 8 10 12

Fig. 13: Torque vs. Peak Current The d- and q-axes equivalent circuit parameters for the

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MD_AFM motor have been evaluated by performing the standstill time response test (STR). During the test the motor is energized with a low DC voltage step using the two supply configurations shown in Fig.11 with stationary rotor [6]. The recorded current and voltage response for d-axis is shown in Fig.14.

basically due to the increased airgap in the prototype respect to the initial design. The experience of building the prototype has given the necessary confidence in the mechanical properties of the material to permit future machines to use the original air-gap dimension. The last two columns are in satisfactory agreement showing the validity of the computation method.
C. PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT The prototype has been equipped with several temperature sensors making possible the thermal monitoring of the most critical parts such as the coils and stator plastic discs. Than the prototype has been tested in several different loaded conditions at different speeds; in particular, the rated torque and speed have been successfully verified. The measured efficiencies that are lower than those forecasted; in particular the no load loss is higher than the computed value are mainly due to constructional problems that require further investigations. Finally, the prototype torque density is 1Nm/kg, which is comparable with the torque density range of conventional industrial machines. However in making the comparison, the torque density of the motors for industrial applications must be de-rated to take into account that in industrial applications there is usually no constrains on maximum external temperature, and part of the losses are exchanged through the mechanical interface. Furthermore, it must be considered that the prototype does not optimise all the parts of the mechanical structure; the CAD analysis and the experience gained in the prototype construction suggest a possible weight reduction of about 30%.

Fig. 14: d-axis STR test acquisitions (trace 3: voltage step, trace 1: current response) The fitting method applied to the measured currents leads to the identification of the d- and q-axes inductances and resistances. For comparison, the inductance has been calculated using a 3D finite element analysis and the resistance by a conventional geometric method. The results of the calculations are 3.65 mH and 1.73 ohms respectively and agree well with the measured values of 3.4 mH, 1.74 ohms at 20C (average of the two axis results). To summarize, in Table I are reported the three values of the motor parameters: 1. the value computed starting from the motor design; 2. the value computed considering the prototype realisation, that is, taking into account the construction modification respect to the initial design; 3. the value experimentally determined. TABLE I: MOTOR PARAMETERS
Parameter Rphase @ 20C [] Lphase [mH] Kv [Vs/rad] KT [Nm/Arms] Computed (design) 1.73 3.75 2.02 3.5 Computed (prototype) 1.73 3.65 1.83 3.17 Experimental 1.74 3.4 1.73 3.00

IV. CONCLUSION A dedicated brushless PM motor with unconventional plastic (quasi) ironless structure for stratospheric aircraft propeller drive has been manufactured and tested. The experimental results basically confirm the expected motor characteristics and performance predicted during the design stage. These results position the proposed solution (compared with conventional PM brushless motors in terms of torque density and efficiency) in the range of premium motors. Further improvements are expected by extending the use of the advanced plastic materials. Weight reductions will be possible by optimising the structural design and by also adopting plastic materials for the external enclosure and the shaft.

The differences between the two "computed" columns are

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[9]

APPENDIX A TABLE II: PLASTIC COMPOSITE MATERIALS PROPERTIES

Ketron PEEK Glass fibre Reinforced Ketron PEEK
Very Good Very Good Good Very Good 1.51 (250C) (230C) 3.00E-05 0.43 90 -20 7

S. Huang, J. Luo, F. Leonardi, T. A. Lipo, A Comparison of Power Density for Axial Flux Machines Based on General Purpose Sizing Equations, IEEE Trans. on Energy Conversion, Vol.14, n.5, June 1999, pp.185-192.

Overall Chem. Resist. Moisture Absorption Steam Resistance Wear Resistance (dry) Specific Weight [kg/dm ] Cont. Service Temperature Heat Deflection Temperature under Load Coefficient of Linear Thermal Expansion [K-1] Thermal Conductivity [W/mK] Tensile Strength [N/mm2] Low temperature resistance [C] Relative Machinability (1=easy 10=very difficult)
3

Very Good Very Good Good Very Good 1.31 (250C) (160C) 5.00E-05 0.25 110 -60 5

REFERENCES
[1] G.Romeo, G.Frulla, E.Cestino, G.Corsino: "HELIPLAT: Design, Aerodynamic and Structural Analysis of Very-Long Endurance Solar Powered Stratospheric UAV". AIAA JOURNAL OF AIRCRAFT, Vol. 40, No. 6, Nov-Dec 2003 E.Lavagno, R.Gerboni "Energy Subsystem for HeliNet: Hydrogen as Stratospheric Application Propellant", Conf. Rec WHEC '02, Montral (Canada), C1.8. F.Profumo, A.Tenconi, G.Gianolio, M.Cerchio, R.J.Hill-Cottingham, P.C.Coles, J.F.Eastham, A Plastic Structure Multi-Disc Axial Flux PM Motor, Conf. Rec. IEEE-IAS02, Pittsburgh (USA), pp. 1274 -1280 vol.2 R.J.Hill-Cottingham, P.C.Coles, J.F.Eastham, F.Profumo, A.Tenconi, G.Gianolio, Novel Axial Flux Machine for Aircraft Drive: Design and modeling IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. 38, N. 5, September 2002. Cavagnino, A.; Lazzari, M.; Profumo, F.; Tenconi, A., A comparison between the axial flux and the radial flux structures for PM synchronous motors, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Volume: 38 Issue: 6, Nov/Dec 2002, pp: 1517 1524 K. Sitapati, R. Krishnan, Performance Comparisons of Radial and Axial Field, Permanent Magnet, Brushless Machines, Industry Applications, IEEE Transactions on, Volume: 37 Issue: 5 , Sept.-Oct. 2001 Page(s): 1219 1226 R.J.Hill-Cottingham, P.C.Coles, J.F.Eastham, F.Profumo, A.Tenconi, G.Gianolio, Multi-disc Axial Flux Stratospheric Aircraft Propeller Drive, Conf. Rec. IEEE IAS, '01 Chicago, USA 01, 2001, pp 1634-1639. Cavagnino, A.; Lazzari, M.; Profumo, F.; Tenconi, A., Axial flux interior PM synchronous motor: parameters identification and steady-state performance measurements; Industry Applications, IEEE Transactions on, Volume: 36 Issue: 6 , Nov/Dec 2000 pp: 1581 1588

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