1920
3, MAY/JUNE 2017
Analysis of a Dual-Rotor, Toroidal-Winding,
Axial-Flux Vernier Permanent Magnet Machine
Tianjie Zou, Student Member, IEEE, Dawei Li, Member, IEEE, Ronghai Qu, Senior Member, IEEE,
Jian Li, Member, IEEE, and Dong Jiang, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, a vernier permanent magnet (VPM)
machine with dual-rotor toroidal-winding axial-flux topology is
analyzed. Through the combination of toroidal windings with the
rotor-stator-rotor topology, the end winding length of the proposed
machine is significantly reduced compared with that of the regu-
lar VPM machine. Based on the airgap permeance function, the
back-EMF and torque expressions are derived and the nature of
the machine is revealed. The influence of pole ratio (ratio of rotor
pole pair number to stator pole pair number) and main geomet-
ric parameters, such as slot opening, magnet thickness, etc., on
electromagnetic performance is then analytically investigated in
detail. Both the quasi-three-dimensional (quasi-3D) finite element
analysis (FEA) and 3-D FEA are applied to verify the derived
equations. Finally, a prototype of the proposed machine has been
manufactured and experimentally evaluated. The test results agree
well with both theoretical and FEA analyses. With the current den-
sity of 5.8 A/mm2 and slot fill factor of 0.35, the torque density of
the proposed machine prototype can reach 31.9 kNm/m3 .
Index Terms—Axial flux, dual rotor, quasi-three-dimensional
(quasi-3-D) finite element analysis (FEA), toroidal winding, torque
equation, vernier machine.
I. INTRODUCTION
ITH THE merits of high torque density and com-
W pact mechanical structure, vernier permanent magnet
(VPM) machines are attracting more and more research interests
[1]–[4]. Due to the so-called magnetic gearing effect [1], the ro-
tor of a VPM machine rotates at a much lower speed than that
of the stator magnetic field, which makes this kind of machine
a promising alternative for low-speed, high-torque, direct-drive
applications such as wind power and ship propulsion.
Since first proposed in 1995 [5], VPM machines have been
extensively studied in the past few years. Many novel VPM ma-
chine topologies [6]–[9] were proposed, such as dual-excitation
Manuscript received August 9, 2016; revised November 10, 2016; accepted
January 10, 2017. Date of publication January 24, 2017; date of current version
May 18, 2017. Paper 2016-EMC-0855.R1, presented at the 2015 IEEE Energy
Conversion Congress and Exposition, Montreal, QC, Canada, Sep. 20–24, and
approved for publication in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICA-
TIONS by the Electric Machines Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications
Society. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China under Grant 51337004 and Grant 51407082. (Corresponding author:
Dawei Li.)
The authors are with the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromag-
netic Engineering and Technology, School of Electrical and Electronic En-
gineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074,
China (e-mail: txwj129@hust.edu.cn; daweili@hust.edu.cn; ronghaiqu@mail.
hust.edu.cn; jianli@hust.edu.cn; jiangdong.tsinghua@gmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2017.2657493
0093-9994 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO.
[6], outer rotor [7], dual stator [8], consequent pole [9], etc.
Besides, some researchers paid their attention on theoretical
analysis of VPM machine performance, including back-EMF
[10], torque capability and quality [11] as well as power factor
[12]. Most recently, practical application-based optimal design
of VPM machines has also become a research hotspot [13], [14].
Despite the strength in torque capability, regular VPM ma-
chines with integral slot distributed windings tend to suffer
from long end turns. The end windings may occupy consid-
erable percentage of total machine volume and therefore offset
the advantage in torque density. In order to shorten the end
turns, nonoverlapping winding and toroidal winding have been
adopted for VPM machines [15]–[17]. Nonoverlapping wind-
ings are suitable for VPM machines with specially designed
stator topology, i.e., the stator with auxiliary tooth-slot struc-
ture [15], [16]. [17] proposed a dual-rotor VPM machine, in
which toroidal windings were applied to take advantage of the
dual-airgap structure.
So far, most researches of VPM machines are conducted
on radial-flux topologies. In recent years, axial-flux permanent
magnet (AFPM) machines have become an important alterna-
tive to radial-flux PM machines [18]–[21]. With inherent advan-
tage in torque density, AFPM machine with high pole number
are becoming an attractive solution for low-speed applications,
especially when the machine aspect ratio is a dominant con-
sideration [20], [21]. Up to now, a few topologies of axial-flux
VPM (AFVPM) machines have been found in the literature
[22]–[26]. Zhao et al. [22] proposed a dual-stator, axial-flux,
spoke-type VPM machine with improved power factor. In [23],
comparative analyses were performed on a novel five-disk axial-
flux-modulated machine and its radial-flux counterpart, which
shares the same operation principle with VPM machine. This
paper will provide a deep analysis on the nature of AFVPM
machines, including detailed back-EMF and torque derivation
based on geometric parameters, as well as these parameters’
effect upon machine performance.
First, a dual-rotor, toroidal-winding AFVPM machine is pre-
sented in this paper, as illustrated in Fig. 1, which combines
the advantages of AFPM and VPM machines. Compared with
the regular VPM machines, this machine topology has ad-
vantage in the end winding length. Then, the machine struc-
ture and operation principle will be introduced In Section II.
Section III will be devoted to the back-EMF and torque deriva-
tion of the proposed machine. Some design parameters, such as
slot opening, diameter ratio (ratio of inner to outer diameter),
ZOU et al.: ANALYSIS OF A DUAL-ROTOR, TOROIDAL-WINDING, AXIAL-FLUX VERNIER PERMANENT MAGNET MACHINE 1921

Fig. 1. Exploded view of the proposed AFVPM machine.

Fig. 3. Sketch of the proposed AFVPM machine with main geometric pa-
rameters. (a) Cylindrical view. (b) Top view of the stator. (c) Top view of the
rotor.

Fig. 2. Flux distribution along half the cylindrical surface of the proposed TABLE I
machine. LIST OF MAIN GEOMETRIC PARAMETERS

Symbol Meaning Symbol Meaning

magnet thickness, etc., will be investigated based on the ana-
hss stator slot depth ws Stator-slot width
lytical equations. Quasi-three-dimensional (quasi-3D) finite el- hy s stator yoke thickness w p (r ) Stator-slot pitch
ement analysis (FEA) [27], [28] and 3-D FEA will be used to hy r rotor yoke thickness θs Stator-mechanical angle
verify the theoretical analysis in Section IV. The electromag- hm PM thickness αp PM pole arc coefficient
g airgap length Ri Machine inner radius
netic performance of the AFVPM machine will be compared Lt machine axial length Ro Machine outer radius
with a designed regular dual-rotor AFPM machine in Section V.
Finally, a prototype of the proposed machine with optimized
geometric parameters has been designed and manufactured. Ex-
perimental validation will be given in Section VI. designed individually, as well as the stator teeth facing the inner
and outer airgaps.
Different from regular PM machines, the slots and teeth of
II. MACHINE STRUCTURE AND OPERATION PRINCIPLE the stator for VPM machine are not only for embedding wind-
The exploded sketch of the proposed dual-rotor AFVPM ma- ings or serving as part of the magnetic path, but also working
chine is shown in Fig. 1. Briefly, the proposed machine is con- as flux modulators, which have significant influence on torque
structed in a similar way with conventional dual-rotor AFPM performance of VPM machines. In order to maintain the same
machine, including two rotors and one stator sandwiched in be- modulation effect along radial direction of an AFVPM machine,
tween. The surface mounted PMs on the two rotor disks are trapezoidal slot is desirable since the ratio of slot opening width
circumferentially aligned with each other and of opposite polar- to slot pitch remains constant. However, due to manufacturing
ities, forming a North–North (NN) type TORUS topology [18]. difficulties, a radially proportional structure for an axial-flux
Benefited from the rotor-stator-rotor structure combined with machine may not be a cost-effective option when silicon steel
the NN-type magnet polarity arrangement, toroidal windings sheet are used to fabricate iron cores. Therefore, rectangular in-
can be used to significantly shorten the end winding length. stead of trapezoidal slots are chosen for the proposed machine.
Fig. 2 illustrates the flux distribution along cylindrical sur- On the rotor side, trapezoidal-shaped magnets are preferred to
face of the proposed machine. Two strands of flux lines, driven keep the pole arc unchanged and thus remain a balanced mag-
by PMs on different rotors, respectively, pass through two axial netic loading along radial direction. Fig. 3 gives the sketch of
airgaps into the stator core and then travel circumferentially in the proposed machine, with some main geometric parameters
the stator back iron. It can be clearly seen that the flux lines tabulated in Table I.
exhibit the property of mirror symmetry. Therefore, the analyz- In order to illustrate the strength of toroidal windings ap-
ing process can be simplified by focusing on only one rotor and plied in the dual-rotor AFVPM machine topology, a designed
half of the stator. In comparison, the rotor-stator-rotor topology 22 rotor pole pair and a two stator pole pair case is taken as
applied in radial-flux VPM machines will lead to a more com- a specific example. The geometric parameters of the stator are
plex design process, since the inner and outer rotors should be summarized in Table II, in which the stator-slot pitch wp (r) is
1922 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2017

TABLE II following analyzing process is also applicable for regular

STATOR GEOMETRIC PARAMETERS FOR WINDING-TYPE COMPARISON
AFVPM machine with only one surface mounted rotor and one
single-side open-slotted stator. It should be noted that the iron
Item Value Item Value
cores are assumed to have infinite permeability with no satu-
Ro 110 mm Ri 66 mm ration considered. The flux leakage between PMs is also ne-
hy s 26 mm hss 16 mm glected. Besides, the radial component of flux is assumed to be
ws 11.5 mm w p (r ) 23.0 mm
negligible.

A. Airgap Flux Density Excited by PMs

Fig. 4. Sketch of three optional winding configurations. (a) Toroidal winding.
(b) Dual-side concentrated winding. (c) Dual-side, single-layer lap winding.
TABLE III
COMPARISON OF THE THREE WINDING CONFIGURATIONS
According to the magnetic circuit theory in PM machines, one
piece of PM can be regarded as one constant MMF in series with
magnet reluctance. With the origin for θs illustrated in Fig. 3
at the initial time, the Fourier series of the MMF Fc developed
by PMs can be expressed by (1), where Fc1 is the amplitude of
the fundamental term, Pr the number of PM pole pairs, ω the
electrical angular velocity and αp the ratio of pole arc to pole
pitch. Fc1 is given by (2), where Br and hm are the remanence
and thickness of the PM, respectively. With only the major term
of Fc concerned, the MMF harmonics with the order higher than
i = 1 will be neglected in the following analysis:
 Fc1  π
Fc (θs , t) = sin iαp cos(iPr θs − iωt) (1)
i=1,3,5...
i 2

Item Toroidal winding Concentrated winding Lap winding

≈ Fc1 cos(Pr θs − ωt)
4 Br π 
Turns in series per phase 256 256 256 Fc1 = hm sin αp . (2)
Winding factor 0.97 0.25 0.97 π μ0 μr 2
Peak-phase current 10 A 38.8 A 10 A
Total copper weight 3.77 kg 2.96 kg 7.45 kg The flux modulation effect of the proposed AFVPM machine
Relative copper weight 1 0.78 1.98
Total copper loss 51.7 W 610.9 W 102.4 W is presented by introducing the airgap permeance function (3),
Relative copper loss 1 11.8 1.98 where Z is the number of stator slots, Λ0 and Λ1 stand for
constant and fundamental term of the airgap permeance per
unit area, respectively. The coefficients of the airgap permeance
function can be further expressed by using the conformal map-
calculated at average radius. Fig. 4 shows three optional wind-
ping method in (4)–(7) [29], where μ0 is the permeability of
ing configurations per pole per phase for the same 24-slot stator,
vacuum and μr the relative permeability of PMs. ws , wp (r),
schematically. Then, the copper loss and material consumption
and g are the geometric parameters that have been described
of the three cases for producing identical stator magnetomotive
and summarized in Fig. 3 and Table I. Since ws is constant for
force (MMF) are calculated. The slot fill factor is assumed to
rectangular slots, the term ws /wp (r) is dependent on the radial
be 0.5.
position r. Hence, the airgap permeance is a function of r, which
The comparison results of the three winding configurations
results in varying flux modulation effect from the inner part to
are summarized in Table III. The dual-side concentrated winding
the outer part of the proposed machine
is not a cost-effective option, since the needed phase current is
much larger than that of the toroidal winding due to its poor Λ(θs , r) ≈ Λ0 (r) + Λ1 (r) cos(Zθs ) (3)
winding factor, which will cause significant increase in copper  
loss. If lap winding is adopted, there will be long end turns, as μ0 ws
Λ0 (r) =  1 − 1.6β (4)
well as difficult winding embedment and reshaping. Through g wp (r)
rough calculation, the copper weight and loss by using toroidal    
μ0 2 0.78125 ws
winding is reduced by ∼49% when compared with that of the Λ1 (r) =  β 2 sin 1.6π
single-layer lap winding. g π 0.78125 − 2[ wwp (r
s
)]
wp (r)
(5)
III. ANALYTICAL DERIVATION OF AXIAL-FLUX VPM hm
MACHINES g = g + (6)
μr
Since the proposed machine exhibits the property of mirror  
2 − 12 
symmetry from the viewpoint of flux distribution, the derivation 1 ws
β= 1− 1+ . (7)
will be focused on half the whole model. That is to say, the 2 2g 
ZOU et al.: ANALYSIS OF A DUAL-ROTOR, TOROIDAL-WINDING, AXIAL-FLUX VERNIER PERMANENT MAGNET MACHINE 1923

TABLE IV Λ1 decreases after an initial increase and reaches its peak value
LIST OF MAIN MAJOR FIXED PARAMETERS
when ws /wp−avg is ∼0.55. Meanwhile, this tendency gradu-
ally disappears with the increase of radius r, which can be at-
Symbol Meaning Quantity
tributed to the limitation of ws since the range of ws /wp keeps
Do Stator outer diameter 220 mm decreasing along radial direction and cannot reach an optimal
Di Stator inner diameter 132 mm value at the outer part of the machine.
hm PM thickness 3 mm
g Airgap length 1 mm
The variation of airgap permeance along radial direction is
Br PM remanence 1.20 T further considered in the calculation of airgap flux density. As
αp PM pole arc coefficient 0.9 illustrated in [10], the airgap flux density Bg is the production of
Z Stator slot number 24
Pr Rotor pole pair number 22
PMs’ MMF and the airgap permeance per unit area, which yields
(8). By substituting (1)–(3) into (8), Bg can be represented by
(9), which is similar to that in [10]. However, it should be noticed
that Bg is related to radial position of the evaluated point, which
is different from that of the radial-flux VPM machines

Bg (θs , r, t) = Fc (θs , t)Λ(θs , r) (8)

Bg (θs , r, t) ≈ Fc1 {Λ0 (r) cos(Pr θs − ωt)
Λ1 (r)
+ cos[(Z − Pr )θs + ωt]
2
Λ1 (r)
+ cos[(Z + Pr )θs − ωt]}. (9)
2

B. Back-EMF and Torque Expression

The winding function theory is applied to expediently derive
the back-EMF and torque expression. For the proposed AFVPM
Fig. 5. Λ 0 versus slot opening ratio w s /w p −av g and relative radial position machine, the flux linkage per phase λph can be calculated by
r/R o . (10), where k is the diameter ratio, i.e., ratio of inner to outer
diameter. N (θs ) is the winding function of one phase expressed
by (11), where Ps is the number of stator pole pairs. Generally,
the stator-slot number Z, stator pole pair number Ps and rotor
pole pair number Pr in a VPM machine should satisfy the
relationship expressed by (12)
 D o /2   2π 
λph = Bg (θs , r, t)N (θs )dθs rdr (10)
k D o /2 0
 2 Ns
N (θs ) = kw j cos(jPs θs ) (11)
j =1,3,5...
jπ Ps

Z = Pr ± P s . (12)

By substituting (9), (11), and (12) into (10), λph can be

represented by (13)–(15), where kw j is the winding factor of
Fig. 6. Λ 1 versus slot opening ratio w s /w p −av g and relative radial position
r/R o . jth harmonic, Ns the number of turns in series per phase. In
the following analysis, the proposed AFVPM machine sat-
isfies Z = Pr + Ps , since larger torque capability can be
In order to investigate the characteristics of Λ0 and Λ1 , a spe-
achieved [1]
cific model of AFVPM machine has been built, with its major
fixed parameters listed in Table IV. Figs. 5 and 6 give the varia- Ns
λph = 2Fc1 kw cos ωt(fΛ 0 ± fΛ 1 ) (13)
tion of Λ0 and Λ1 with slot opening ratio (defined as ws /wp (r) Pr
at average radius) and radial position r/Ro , respectively.  D o /2

μ0 1.6βws
It should be noted that ws cannot exceed the minimum slot fΛ 0 = Λ0 (r)rdr =  Do (1 − k ) 1 −
2 2
pitch wp m in , i.e., wp at the innermost radius. It can be seen k D o /2 8g wp−avg
in Fig. 5 that Λ0 drops with the increase of slot opening while (14)
remains almost unchanged along radial direction.  D o /2
Pr 1
Meanwhile, the situation for Λ1 is more complicated as shown fΛ 1 = Λ1 (r)rdr. (15)
in Fig. 6. At the inner part of the machine where r/Ro is small, Ps k D o /2 2
1924
Fig. 7. fΛ 0 and fΛ 1 versus slot opening ratio w s /w p −av g with different
diameter ratios. P r = 22, P s = 2, g  = 4 mm.
The back-EMF expression can then be obtained by (16),
where Ω stands for mechanical angular speed of the rotor. For
the proposed three-phase, surface-mounted AFVPM machine
with negligible cogging torque and reluctance torque, the elec-
tromagnetic torque Te can be expressed by (17). Since the atten-
tion of this paper is focused on steady-state performance of the
proposed machine from the viewpoint of electromagnetic field,
the input current waveform is assumed to be sinusoidal. There-
fore, Te is further expressed by (18), where Iph is the amplitude
of phase current. As average electrical loading Aavg is given by
(19), Te can be rewritten as (20)
d
eph (t) = − λph = 2kw Ns ΩFc1 (fΛ 0 + fΛ 1 ) sin ωt
dt
= Eph sin ωt
ea (t)ia (t) + eb (t)ib (t) + ec (t)ic (t)
Te =
Ω
3 Eph Iph
Te = = 3kw Fc1 Ns Iph (fΛ 0 + fΛ 1 )
2 Ω
√
3Ns Iph 3 2Ns Iph
Aavg = √ = (19)
2πDavg π(1 + k)Do
√ ws /wp−avg remain around 0.6 for the pole ratio of 22/2. The
2π
Te = kw Fc1 Aavg (1 + k)Do (fΛ 0 + fΛ 1 ).
2
It can be seen from (16) and (18) that both the back-EMF and
torque are proportional to the term fΛ0 + fΛ1 , which is decided
by the main geometric parameters of the proposed machine. fΛ0
is directly expressed with these parameters in (12), while fΛ1
in (13) can be evaluated by numerical integration. Essentially,
fΛ0 and fΛ1 are proportional to constant and fundamental term
of the real permeance over the entire airgap region. Analogous
to the analytical equations for radial-flux VPM machines [10],
fΛ0 can be regarded as the coefficient for a conventional AFPM
machine, while fΛ1 is the additional term brought in by the
vernier structure. It is easily seen that the parameters affecting
fΛ0 and fΛ1 are D0 , k, ws , g  , Pr , and Ps . By now, the in-
fluence of these parameters on output torque of the proposed
AFVPM machine can be investigated analytically.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2017
Fig. 8. fΛ 0 + fΛ 1 versus slot opening ratio w s /w p −av g with different
diameter ratio. P r = 22, P s = 2, and g  = 4 mm.
Fig. 9. fΛ 0 + fΛ 1 versus slot opening ratio w s /w p −av g with different pole
ratio. P s = 2 and g  = 4 mm.
(16)
Fig. 7 gives the variation of fΛ0 and fΛ1 with slot opening
(17) ratio for different values of diameter ratio k. It can be seen that
fΛ1 exceeds corresponding fΛ0 as ws /wp−avg gets larger than
0.45. That is to say, the torque capability of an AFVPM machine
(18)
can be more than twice that of its conventional counterpart.
The variation of fΛ0 + fΛ1 with slot opening ratio at different
diameter ratios is illustrated in Fig. 8. It can be seen that fΛ0 +
fΛ1 drops with the increase of k, while the optimal values of
relationship of fΛ0 + fΛ1 with slot opening ratio for different
(20) pole ratios is shown in Fig. 9, from which it can be seen that the
optimal value of ws /wp−avg increases when the pole ratio gets
larger.
In order to investigate the electromagnetic torque perfor-
mance with the derived equations, the thermal condition should
be fixed in the variation of design parameters. The dc copper
loss of the proposed machine is expressed by (21), viz.,
π
PCu = ρCu JAavg (1 − k 2 )Do 2 (21)
4
where ρCu is the resistivity of copper, J the current density,
and Aavg the average electrical loading described in (19). In the
following analysis, PCu is kept 80 W.
The diameter ratio k is a key parameter for AFPM machines.
The tendency shown in Fig. 8 does not mean that k should be as
small as possible in a practical design, since it does not take the
ZOU et al.: ANALYSIS OF A DUAL-ROTOR, TOROIDAL-WINDING, AXIAL-FLUX VERNIER PERMANENT MAGNET MACHINE
Fig. 10. Torque versus k with different pole ratio. P s = 2, w s /w p −av g =
0.5.
Fig. 11. Torque versus k with different stator pole pair number. Pole ratio =
11/1. w s /w p −av g = 0.5.
copper loss into account. The pole ratio, defined as the ratio of
rotor to stator pole pair number, is an important design parameter
for VPM machines, which must be carefully chosen. Therefore,
the influence of k and pole ratio on torque performance is in-
vestigated through the analytical torque equation. Figs. 10 and
11 give the torque variation with k for different combinations of
Ps and Pr . When Do and Ps are fixed at 220 mm and 2, respec-
tively, the proposed machines with higher pole ratio seems to
achieve larger average torque. Fig. 11 shows the torque variation
with k when the pole ratio is fixed at 11/1. It can be seen that
the lower stator pole pair number leads to larger torque and the
optimal k for the pole ratio of 11/1 is around 0.6.
The airgap structures, such as slot opening ratio, magnet
thickness, airgap length, etc., also have significant influence
on torque performance of the proposed machine. The effects
of these parameters will be investigated through the derived
equations in association with FEA in Section IV.
IV. COMPARISON OF ANALYTICAL METHOD WITH QUASI-3D
FEA AND 3-D FEA
A. Quasi-3D FEA
As axial-flux machines have inherent 3-D flux path, the most
accurate solution to verify the proposed equations is to apply
3-D FEA. However, the simulation of 3-D FEA models will be
too time-consuming when the design parameters are changing.
1925
Fig. 12. Schematic of transforming the 3-D model of the proposed machine
to corresponding quasi-3D model.
Fig. 13. Torque versus slot opening with different diameter ratio k. g = 1 mm.
Therefore, the so-called quasi-3D FEA is employed to make
more efficient comparison with the analytical results. As il-
lustrated in Fig. 12, the real 3-D model is “cut” into several
layers along concentric cylindrical surfaces at certain radius,
with each segment being “straightened” to a rectangular model.
These rectangular models can be regarded as linear machines
and analyzed with 2-D FEA. The overall performance of the
whole machine can then be obtained by summing the perfor-
mance of all the layers. Essentially, this method is a multilayer
2-D FEA. In this part, five-layer quasi-3D FEA is conducted
to balance the computation time and accuracy. By adopting the
quasi-3D FEA instead of conventional 2-D FEA, the variation
of geometric parameters along radial direction is simplified but
still taken into account, which makes the comparison more con-
vincing.
To verify the derived equations, several quasi-3D FEA models
have been built. Fig. 13 gives the comparison of torque variation
with slot opening between analytical method and FEA. It can be
seen that the results match well. Moreover, it should be noted
that for AFPM machines, the range slot opening is dependent on
the diameter ratio k. The larger the diameter ratio is, the wider
range of slot opening can be obtained. For k = 0.6, the optimal
slot opening ratio is ∼0.63. In a practical case, the selection of
1926
Fig. 14. Torque versus PM thickness with different diameter ratio k. g =
1 mm.
Fig. 15. Torque versus airgap length. Diameter ratio k = 0.6.
Fig. 16. Torque versus pole arc coefficient α p . Diameter ratio k = 0.6.
slot opening and diameter ratio should also take into account
the room for end windings and tooth saturation at the inner part
of the machine.
Fig. 14 shows the torque variation with PM thickness for
different values of k. In each curve, the torque increases rapidly,
reaching its peak value at the PM thickness of around 2.6 mm
and then drops slowly. The gap between analytical results and
FEA gets larger since PM thickness exceeds 10 mm, which
can be attributed to considerable flux leakage between adjacent
magnets. The variations of torque with airgap length and pole
arc coefficient are illustrated and compared in Figs. 15 and
16, respectively, in which the results coincide well. Overall,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2017
Fig. 17. Comparison of back-EMF waveforms.
Fig. 18. Comparison of torque waveforms.
sufficient accuracy has been verified within a wide variation
range of corresponding design parameters.
B. 3-D FEA
In order to validate both the theoretical and quasi-3D FEA
results, a 3-D FEA model has been built, whose geometric pa-
rameters have been optimized based on the foregoing analysis.
The major machine parameters are listed in Table VI, in which
the electrical loading is calculated at the average radius. Fig. 17
illustrates the comparison of back-EMF waveforms between the
analytical, quasi-3D FEA and 3-D FEA results. It can been seen
that the waveforms match well with each other. Fig. 18 gives the
comparison of torque waveforms. It should be noted that only
the average torque is considered in theoretical analysis. With
the electrical loading of 164 A/cm, the analytically calculated
torque value is 110.3 Nm, ∼4% larger than that from 3-D FEA.
The torque density of the 3-D model can reach 32.6 kNm/m3 .
The torque ripples of the quasi-3D model and 3-D model are
0.5% and 2.3%, respectively. The performance comparison of
the three methods, along with experimental test results, is sum-
marized in Table VII.
The magnetic field plot of the 3-D model and the outermost
layer of quasi-3D model is shown in Fig. 19. It can been seen
that the flux density distribution of the two models coincide
ZOU et al.: ANALYSIS OF A DUAL-ROTOR, TOROIDAL-WINDING, AXIAL-FLUX VERNIER PERMANENT MAGNET MACHINE 1927

TABLE V
MAIN DESIGN PARAMETERS OF THE TWO MACHINES

Item AFVPM machine Regular AFPM machine

Number of slots 24 24
Number of rotor pole pair 22 10
Number of stator pole pair 2 10
Stator outer diameter 220 mm 220 mm
Diameter ratio 0.6 0.6
Average slot opening ratio 0.5 0.9
Total axial length 91 mm 94 mm
Stator yoke thickness 26 mm 16 mm
Rotor yoke thickness 12.5 mm 9 mm
PM thickness 3.0 mm 4.0 mm
PM pole arc coefficient 0.9 0.9
Airgap length 1.0 mm 1.0 mm
Single-slot area 184 mm2 180 mm2
Turns in series per phase 256 256
Peak phase current 16.7 A 16.7 A
Core material 50WW350 50WW350
Magnet material N40UH N40UH
Fig. 19. Magnetic field plot of the 3-D FEA model and the outermost layer of
quasi-3D FEA model.

Fig. 21. On load Magnetic field plots along middle layer of the two quasi-3D
FEA models. (a) 1/4 model of the dual-rotor AFVPM machine. (b) 1/4 model
of the regular AFPM machine.

Fig. 20. Sketch of the AFVPM machine and the regular counterpart. (a) Stator
of the AFVPM machine. (b) Rotor of the AFVPM machine. (c) Stator of the
regular AFPM machine. (d) Rotor of the regular AFPM machine.

well. Under the rated phase current of 16.7 A, the peak value of
flux density is around 1.65 T in both the stator and rotor yoke.

V. ELECTROMAGNETIC PERFORMANCE COMPARISON WITH
REGULAR AFPM MACHINE
In order to further investigate the electromagnetic perfor-
mance, i.e., torque capability and power factor, of the dual-rotor
AFVPM machine, a regular 24 slot, 20-pole dual-rotor AFPM
machine with the same outer diameter is designed for compar-
ison. The sketch of the two machines is illustrated in Fig. 20.
It can be seen that the regular machine comprises a half-closed
slot stator embedded with dual-side fractional-slot concentrated
winding. The main design parameters of the two machines are
listed in Table V. To make a relatively fair comparison, the stator
and rotor iron cores of the counterpart are designed to keep a
similar maximal flux density with that of the AFVPM machine.
Fig. 22. Back-EMF waveforms of the two machines at 320 rpm.
Fig. 21 gives the magnetic field plots of the two machines on
load condition.
Fig. 22 shows the phase back-EMF waveforms of the two
machines at 320 rpm through Quasi-3D FEA. Due to the flux
modulation effect, the fundamental amplitude of back-EMF in-
duced by the AFVPM machine is ∼86% larger than that of the
regular one. The variations of output torque and power factor
along with phase current are compared in Fig. 23. It can be
seen that with the same phase current and similar copper loss,
the output torque of the AFVPM machine can be increased by
1928 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2017

TABLE VI
MAIN PARAMETERS OF THE PROTOTYPE AND TEST BENCH

Item Value

Number of slots 24
Number of rotor pole pair 22
Stator outer diameter 220 mm
Diameter ratio 0.6
Total axial length 91 mm
Magnet thickness 3.0 mm
Airgap length 1.0 mm
Slot depth 16.0 mm
Slot width 11.5 mm
Slot opening ratio 0.5
Fig. 23. Comparison of output torque and power factor along with phase Pole arc coefficient 0.9
current. Electrical loading 164 A/cm
Current density 5.8 A/mm2
Slot fill factor 0.35
Turns in series per phase 256
Rotation speed 320 rpm
Peak phase back-EMF 150 V
DC voltage of the inverter 550 V
Core material 50WW350
Magnet material N40UH

Fig. 25. On-load test bench of the AFVPM prototype machine.

Fig. 24. Proposed AFVPM prototype machine. (a) Stator and rotor cores.
(b) Stator with toroidal windings. (c) Rotor with surface mounted PMs.
(d) Prototype.
more than 80% compared with the counterpart. The power fac-
tor of the AFVPM machine, as expected, drops quickly with
the increase of phase current, and is much lower than that of
the regular AFPM machine. It should be noted that the low
power factor has been a major challenge for application exten-
sion of most vernier machine topologies [8]–[12], in which the
presented AFVPM machine is not an exception.
VI. PROTOTYPE AND EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF THE PROPOSED
AFVPM MACHINE
In order to validate the foregoing analysis, a dual-rotor,
toroidal-winding AFVPM prototype machine has been designed
and manufactured, as illustrated in Fig. 24. Both the stator and
rotor cores are made of tape wound laminated silicon steel. The
core material with 0.5 mm thickness and 3.5 W rated loss per
kilogram is named 50WW350 by its manufacturer. The main
design parameters are listed in Table VI. As an experimental
prototype, this machine is fabricated with a relatively low slot
fill factor of 0.35 for easy winding embedment.
The on-load test bench is shown in Fig. 25. As the neutral
point of the three phase winding is drawn out of the casing, the
phase back-EMF waveform can be measured, which is shown in
Fig. 26. It can be seen that the back-EMF waveform is sinusoidal
and its amplitude agrees well with both the analytical and FEA
results shown in Fig. 17. The torque versus current curves is
compared in Fig. 27. It can be seen that the quasi-FEA predicted
and experimentally measured curves match well, which are both
slightly lower than the analytical one.
Fig. 28 gives the comparison of FEA predicted and measured
efficiency at 320 rpm. The dc copper loss with end windings
counted, stator and rotor iron loss and PM loss are included in
the FEA calculated efficiency. When the phase current is small,
the measured efficiency is significantly lower than the measured
one, due to relatively high no-load mechanical loss. As the phase
current increases, the gap between the two efficiency curves
narrows. At rated load, the measured efficiency is 86.0%, ∼4.4%
lower than the FEA predicted one. For this prototype, copper
loss is the main loss component, which is independent of the
rotation speed. Since the output power is proportional to both
ZOU et al.: ANALYSIS OF A DUAL-ROTOR, TOROIDAL-WINDING, AXIAL-FLUX VERNIER PERMANENT MAGNET MACHINE
Fig. 26. Measured three phase back-EMF waveforms. Rotation speed =
320 rpm.
Fig. 27. Average torque versus phase current.
Fig. 28. FEA predicted efficiency and measured efficiency versus phase cur-
rent. Rotation speed = 320 rpm.
torque and speed, low-speed high torque machine topologies
such as vernier machines always tend to have relatively poor
efficiency.
When the prototype is driven at rated condition, i.e., 320 rpm
with 16.7 A phase current, the electromagnetic performances are
summarized in Table VII. The measured power factor is close to
the predicted value of 3-D FEA. As the end winding inductance
1929
TABLE VII
PERFORMANCES COMPARISON OF THE PROPOSED MACHINE
Item Analytical Quasi-3D 3-D Measured
Avg. Torque/Nm 110.3 105.6 106.1 103.8
Torque density/kNm/m3 33.9 32.7 32.6 31.9
Power factor 0.62 0.64 0.59 0.57
Calculation time <1 s 40 min 8h –
is not considered in the analytical calculation and quasi-3D
FEA, the power factor calculated by these two methods differ
considerably from the measured one.
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a dual-rotor, toroidal-winding, axial-flux VPM
(AFVPM) machine has been and analyzed. Benefited from the
rotor-stator-rotor topology, the end winding length is signifi-
cantly reduced by adopting toroidal-winding configuration. De-
tailed back-EMF and torque expressions for AFVPM machines
have been analytically derived. Performance evaluation has been
made through both analytical calculation and quasi-3D FEA
within a wide range of machine parameters and the results turn
out to match well. With adequate accuracy, the proposed ana-
lytical method shows strength in calculation time. It has been
found that some design parameters, such as pole ratio, diameter
ratio, slot opening, PM thickness, and airgap length have signif-
icant influence on torque performance of the proposed machine.
For the proposed machine with pole ratio of 11/1, the optimal
diameter ratio and average slot opening ratio are around 0.60
and 0.63, respectively.
Three-D FEA based on an optimized machine model has
also been conducted to validate the forgoing analyzing results.
Through comparison with a designed regular AFPM machine,
the analyzed AFVPM machine shows obvious advantage in
torque density. Finally, a dual-rotor AFVPM prototype machine
has been manufactured. Test results show good agreement with
the predicted ones, and the advantage in torque density of the
proposed machine has been experimentally demonstrated.
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Tianjie Zou (S’15) was born in Hubei, China, in
1991. He received the B.E.E. degree in electrical and
electronic engineering from the Huazhong University
of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2013,
where he is currently working toward the Ph.D. de-
gree in electrical engineering.
His research interests include design, analysis, and
intelligent control of permanent magnet machines.
Dawei Li (S’12–M’15) was born in China. He re-
ceived the B.Eng. degree from the Harbin Institute
of Technology, Harbin, China, and the Ph.D. degree
from the Huazhong University of Science and Tech-
nology, Wuhan, China, in 2010 and 2015, respec-
tively, both in electrical engineering.
His research interests include design and analysis
of novel permanent magnet brushless machines.
Ronghai Qu (S’01–M’02–SM’05) was born in
China. He received the B.E.E. and M.S.E.E. de-
grees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and
the Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin–
Madison, Madison, WI, USA, in 1993, 1996, and
2002, respectively, all in electrical engineering.
In 1998, he joined the Wisconsin Electric Ma-
chines and Power Electronics Consortium, WI, USA,
as a Research Assistant. In 2002, he was at North-
land, a Scott Fetzer Company, Watertown, NY, USA,
as a Senior Electrical Engineer. Since 2003, he has
been with the GE Global Research Center, Niskayuna, NY, USA, as a Senior
Electrical Engineer in the Electrical Machines and Drives Laboratory. Since
2010, he has been a Professor with the Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, Wuhan, China. He has authored more than 120 published technical
papers and holds more than 50 patents/patent applications.
Prof. Qu is a full member of Sigma Xi. Since 2003, he has received several
awards from the GE Global Research Center, including the Technical Achieve-
ment and Management Awards. He also received the 2003 and 2005 Best Paper
Awards, third prize, from the Electric Machines Committee of the IEEE Industry
Applications Society at the 2002 and 2004 IAS Annual Meetings.
Jian Li (M’10) received the B.E.E degree from the
Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China, and
the M.S.E.E and Ph.D. degrees from Dong-A Univer-
sity, Busan, South Korea, in 2005, 2007, and 2011,
respectively, all in electrical engineering.
He is currently an Associate Research Professor
with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engi-
neering, Huazhong University of Science and Tech-
nology, Wuhan, China. His research interests include
design and control of permanent magnet machines
and reluctance machines.
Dong Jiang (S05’–M12’–SM16’) received the B.S.
and M.S. degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing,
China, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA, in 2005, 2007, and
2011, respectively, all in electrical engineering.
From January 2012 to July 2015, he was at the
United Technologies Research Center, East Hartford,
CT, USA, as a Senior Research Scientist/Engineer.
Since July 2015, he has been with the Huazhong Uni-
versity of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China,
as a Professor. His research interests include power
electronics and motor drives. He has published more than 40 IEEE journal and
conference papers in this area.
Prof. Jiang received two Best Paper Awards from IEEE conferences.
He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY
APPLICATIONS.