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Electromagnetic Flat-Faced Robot Gripper for Handling Multiple Industrial Transformer Core Lamination Plates
B. Postma, T. Vinay, T. Kangsanant, and A. Harvey, Associate Member, IEEE
AbstractIn the industrial transformer core assembly process, signicant productivity gains can be achieved by utilizing a robotic gripper that is able to handle, and accurately position, multiple transformer laminations during each pick-and-place cycle. This paper reports on the development of a novel electromagnetic lifter for such applications. The lifter has the unique capability to selectively pick a given number of laminations at a time (the usual requirement is three) from a stack. By considering an analytical model of the magnetic circuit of the electromagnetlamination stack combination, closed form solutions are obtained for the ux ow pattern and the lifting force on each lamination in the stack which closely agrees with the numerical results obtained using two-dimensional nite element analysis software. Results of experiments conducted on a prototype electromagnet are also presented that validate the analytical model ndings. Index TermsElectromagnetic analysis, electromagnets, magnetic devices, materials handling, plates, transformer cores,

Density of lamination material. Parameter dened in text.

I. INTRODUCTION NDUSTRIAL transformer cores are assembled out of thousands of thin, highly exible silicon steel laminations. In a given transformer core assembly, there are several layers of laminations with varying widths which provide for the desirable circular cross section of each leg or yoke of the transformer. In addition, laminations in alternate layers are offset (interleaved) in their longitudinal direction by a xed distance to give the nal core assembly extra mechanical strength and stability and to reduce the effect of air gaps in the magnetic circuit [1]. The core is constructed layer by layer on a horizontal table with every new layer placed meticulously upon the previously constructed layer. There are three basic lamination shapes that make up a particular layer: one shape corresponds to the central leg of the transformer, another to the outer legs, and the third to the horizontal yokes. At any given time during the construction of a layer, a set of three identical laminations of particular shape and width is picked from a stack, transported to the assembly table, and laid at at the precise location so as to mesh correctlywithout any overlap or excessive air gapwith neighboring sets of laminations belonging to the same layer [2]. The laminations are all of the same standard thickness (0.27 mm) and have widths in the range 80260 mm and lengths in the range 10001700 mm. Due to their relatively large size and small thickness, the laminations are extremely exible in nature which makes accurate positioning a very difcult task indeed. Ideally, the gripper required for handling the laminations should make continuous contact along the entire lamination length in order to keep deection to a minimum, and hence, ensure that the nal positioning is as accurate as possible. The most challenging aspect of the automation task revolves around the development of a specialized gripper that can pick the correct number of steel laminations from a stack, position them accurately within itself, and nally place them precisely at predened locations on the assembly table. The development of a bipolar electromagnet to be incorporated into a gripper capable of selectively picking from a stack a given number of laminations at a time is the primary focus of this paper.

NOMENCLATURE Width of pole face. Distance between poles. Air gap length. Normalized net lifting force on th lamination. Gravitational acceleration constant. Alternative indexes indicating lamination position in the stack. Magnetomotive force drop along the length of a lamination (the most negative value of index refers to the electromagnet). Thickness of lamination. Parameter dened in text. Magnetic ux density in the air gap above th lamination. Non linear ux density in th saturated lamination. Net lifting force on th lamination. Geometric factor of electromagnet as dened in text. Nondimensional parameter as dened in text. Parameter dened in text. Magnetic permeability of air. Magnetic permeability of lamination material.
Manuscript received September 25, 1997; revised November 18, 1997. The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001 Australia (e-mail: m9004092@whitetail.ee.rmit.edu.au; reetv@whitetail.ee.rmit.edu.au; reetk@whitetail.ee.rmit.edu.au; reeah@whitetail.ee.rmit.edu.au). Publisher Item Identier S 0018-9464(98)01481-2.

00189464/98$10.00 1998 IEEE

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A gripper mounted with vacuum cups has been the popular choice in the industry for picking at laminations from a stack [3]. One practical problem that is often encountered when picking thin, lightweight, at laminations from a stack is the unpredictable suction forces between laminations. Multiple cups appropriately mounted on the gripper are used to lift the lamination from the ends in order to minimize the suction force. However, a gripper assembly that could handle multiple laminations at once, as opposed to the vacuum assembly which is restricted to picking one lamination at a time, has the potential to signicantly reduce the assembly time and make robotic automation an attractive proposition. It is also apparent that multiple laminations tend to be less exible than a single lamination when being handled by the gripper. The reliable mechanical lifting of multiple laminations is currently an unresolved problem in the manufacturing industry. OPERATION
(a)

II. PRINCIPLE

OF

The only avenue available for picking multiple laminations seems to be a gripper based on electromagnetism. However, a few key technical issues remain to be resolved. Can a given number of silicon steel laminations be picked from a stack reliably? Which key electromagnet parameters may be exploited to obtain optimum lamination picking performance? How are laminations prevented from peeling away from the gripper? When an electromagnet is used to lift a ferromagnetic object, the object itself and its environs, become a part of the magnetic circuit. Therefore, the lifting force will depend, to a great extent, on the geometry and magnetic characteristics of the object and its environs. In the case of the transformer laminations, the whole of the stack becomes part of the magnetic circuit [Fig. 1(a)]. At relatively low magnetic ux levels, the silicon steel laminations present a low reluctance path along their longitudinal direction between the north and the south poles of the gripper. On the other hand, the stack of laminations presents a high reluctance path in the vertical direction. Transformer laminations are usually coated with a thin insulating lm. This lm, along with the air gaps that are present between adjacent laminations due to their surface irregularities, gives rise to the high reluctance in the vertical direction. An equivalent air gap of about 10 m may be assumed to exist between adjacent laminations. (In transformer design calculations, a stacking factor, dened as the ratio of cross-sectional area of iron to that of the actual stack in the range 0.900.97, is used to account for this air gap.) If the ux injected by the electromagnet into the stack of laminations is small, most of the ux will travel along the lamination which is at the top of the stack, and only a small fraction of the total ux will cross the air gaps between the rst and the second lamination as shown in Fig. 1(b). Consequently, the rst lamination will experience a relatively higher lifting force compared with the laminations below. As the ux injected into the stack by the electromagnet is increased, a stage will be reached where the rst lamination, owing to its small cross sectional area, saturates, thereby forcing a signicant fraction of the total ux to penetrate into the second

(b)

(c)

(d) Fig. 1. Flux pattern in the magnetic circuit at different magnetomotive force (mmf) levels. (a) Electromagnet and stack of ve laminations. (b) Picking one lamination (mmf=5At). (c) Picking two laminations (mmf=15At). (d) Picking three laminations (mmf=40At).

lamination [Fig. 1(c)]. As the ux is increased further, the second lamination will also reach a saturation condition and more ux will then cross into the third lamination [Fig. 1(d)], and so on. Thus, it seems possible to closely control the lifting force on the top few laminations in the stack by manipulating the current applied to the electromagnet (and hence the ux injected into the stack). However, one should bear in mind that the above conclusions are valid only under very limited and idealized conditions. If the distance between the poles is large, signicant amounts of magnetic ux will seep deeper into the stack of laminations in the region between the poles. A exible analysis tool is therefore required to investigate the practical feasibility of the proposed electromagnetic gripper and determine the optimum lamination picking parameters.

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(a)

(b) Fig. 2. Two-dimensional model of the electromagnetstack combination.

III. ANALYTICAL MODELING

AND

ANALYSIS

Although the nite element method can be used to obtain a precise numerical solution to complex magnetic circuit problems, there are instances where a simpler analytical approach had been used successfully for parameter survey and fundamental system design [4]. Analytical modeling leading to closed form solutions, if feasible, would be the ideal way to gain physical intuition and better understanding of the problem. Such an approach for investigating the magnetic interaction between the electromagnetic lifter and the stack of laminations was reported by the authors elsewhere [5]. The proposed two-dimensional (2-D) model of the magnetic circuit represents either a single standalone electromagnet such as that shown in Fig. 2(a) with a stack of laminations or,

equivalently, one module in a practical electromagnetic lifter consisting of a number of long, parallel, and alternatively north and south magnetic poles as shown in Fig. 2(b). It is assumed that the standalone magnet has a pole of thickness while the array of electromagnets have poles each of thickness . Using an approach very similar to that used in the analysis of electrical ladder networks [6], the electromagnetic lifter lamination stack combination was modeled as a discrete system, and by using -transform techniques, closed form solutions to the ux pattern and the lifting force on each lamination in the stack were obtained. Hysteresis was neglected and the magnetization curve in the unsaturated region was approximated as a straight line with a permeability of 15.47 10 H/m. For saturated conditions, Frohlichs [7] was used to approximate

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Fig. 3. Approximated

B -H characteristics for silicon steel.

the / curve when the magnetic eld strength exceeded 100 A/m as shown in Fig. 3. A. Model Derivation Some of the laminations ( in number) at the top of the stack are assumed to be under magnetic saturation conditions. represents the magnetomotive force drop along the length the drop of the rst unsaturated lamination in the stack and along the length of the lamination immediately above. A unit depth of the 2-D model of Fig. 2(a) is considered, and the resulting magnetic circuit is shown in Fig. 4. The lamination reluctance under the magnet poles in the vertical direction was neglected due to its relatively small magnitude. Applying Kirchoffs Current Law to node and Kirchoffs Voltage Law to the closed circuit joining the nodes , and . For unsaturated laminations (i.e., )

Fig. 4. Circuit diagram representing the complete electromagnetstack combination.

where

which suggests an exponential drop in the amount of ux through successive laminations in the stack. The smaller the value of , the greater will be the attenuation in the ux through successive laminations in the stack. th and the th The air gap ux density between the laminations is (5) The net lifting force acting on the th lamination is given by (6) where

(1) where the permeability of the unsaturated lamination is assumed to be constant (i.e., the laminations are operating in the linear region of the silicon steel magnetization curve). Simplifying (2) where the positive nondimensional parameter (3) Assuming that the stack contains an innite number of laminations, and as , (2) can be solved [8] to give (4)

A nondimensional parameter, referred to as the normalized force , is dened as follows: (7) is the weight of the portion of a single where lamination between the two magnetic poles.

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Therefore (8) Another nondimensional parameter is introduced as and is referred to as the geometric factor of the electromagnet. Hence (9) where (10) means that the magnetic pull on a particular lamination is more than sufcient to lift it off the stack. It is now possible to work backwards recursively to establish the ux levels and lifting forces on the laminations which are under magnetic saturation. (1) now modies to

is greater than the reluctance in the rolling direction [10]. Although work has been undertaken to evaluate the directional magnetic characteristics of CGO silicon steel [11], their effects were not considered in the nite element analysis undertaken as the reluctance transverse to and with the rolling direction becomes comparable under saturation conditions [12]. The laminations to be picked were highly saturated under the magnet poles, and therefore, the nite element models utilized assumed uniform rolling direction characteristics. Hysteresis effects were also neglected. Due to the time involved with the actual setting up, running, and analyzing of a particular problem, a single Maxwell model was used to validate the analytical model. The main drawback of the analytical model was the fact that magnet pole saturation effects could not be examined, whereas nite element modeling allows the programming of all of the systems magnetic characteristics so as to obtain a more realistic picture of the nal gripper performance. V. DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE PROTOTYPE ELECTROMAGNET

(11) is the saturated ux density in the silicon steel where lamination expressed as a function of the magnetizing force . now takes on the values 0, -1, -2, and where is equal to the number of saturated laminations corresponds to the lowest lamination in in the stack. the stack which is under magnetic saturation, is the one above, and so on. If none of the laminations is saturated, , and then refers to the magnetomotive force then of the electromagnet. Simplifying (12) Assuming that is given and has previously been determined by utilizing (4), (12) may be used to determine and recursively. The net lifting force on the th lamination is (13) The normalized net lifting force on the th lamination is

(14) IV. FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS Utilizing Maxwell 2-D eld simulator [9] software, a nite element model set was constructed of the form shown in Fig. 1(a) with varying pole thickness and separation distances . A stack consisting of ve laminations was considered to keep the analysis simple due to the fact that a maximum of only three laminations are required to be picked. Conventional grain-oriented (CGO) silicon steel exhibits anisotropic magnetic characteristics whereby the reluctance of the laminations transverse to the rolling direction

The prototype electromagnet was constructed to verify the theoretical force behavior obtained using the gripper-stack system models. An orthographic layout of the nal electromagnet prototype is shown in Fig. 5. Ten coils connected in series were used to power the electromagnet from a variable current supply. Each coil was wound on a plastic bobbin former lled to capacity with 150 copper wire turns. The coils were uniformly spaced in pairs along two identical pole sections to ensure an even distribution of the resultant electromagnetic ux. In this manner, the eld potential created was made even along the bottom of the poles where contact took place with the lamination stack. Each coil was mounted on a mild steel bolt that passed through the entire pole assembly. The two magnet poles were parallel to one another and could be manually adjusted to give a desired pole separation distance. Nonferrous aluminum spacers of different thicknesses were used to ensure uniform pole separation along the entire pole length. The electromagnet circuit components were all constructed from mild steel with the exception of the poles that were formed from two 0.5mm, non-directional Terni grade 2350 silicon steel sheets, having low residual magnetism characteristics. All other test rig components were nonferrous with the exception of the lamination plates to be tested. As shown in the photograph of Fig. 6, a standard laboratory beam balance was modied to measure the forces between adjacent plates in the stack. For instance, the force between th and th plates was determined by xing the top plates to the electromagnet and the remaining plates to the balance. From these measurements, the force acting on individual plates was established. VI. RESULTS A. Analytical Results Numerical results for the analytical model derived in Section III were obtained by utilizing a series of Matlab [13]

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Fig. 5. Orthographic layout of electromagnet test rig (dimensions in mm).

Fig. 6. Photograph of the electromagnet test set up.

macros. Considering a model of unit depth, normalized force and corresponding magnetomotive force (mmf) characteristics values and are shown were obtained for different input in Fig. 7. Each line corresponds to a particular value of the electromagnet mmf. Although the results presented are discrete values, continuous line graphs are shown for clarity. In each graph, the horizontal axis represents the discrete lamination number while the corresponding ordinate indicates the normalized force on the rst graph and mmf across the lamination in the other. As the electromagnet mmf is increased, the recurring nature of the forces on and the mmfs across the laminations are evident from these graphs.

Each solid line represents a state at which a lamination is on the verge of saturation and dashed lines merely indicate the characteristic values in between. It can be seen from the graphs that until the mmf drop across a particular lamination exceeding the saturation value of about 10 A, the normalized force on the next lamination in the stack remains negligibly small. Thus, in order to pick the rst laminates in the stack reliably, the mmf of the electromagnet should be such that the th laminate is on the verge of saturation. Under this condition, the normalized force on the th lamination can be seen from the graph to be about 700, whereas the normalized force on th is insignicantly small. the

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NORMALIZED FORCE DISTRIBUTION

IN A

TABLE I LAMINATION STACK WHERE b

= 10 MM AND a = 1 MM

(a) (a)

(b) Fig. 7. Repetitive normalized force and mmf characteristics for a given gripper-stack conguration. (b) Fig. 8. Normalized forces affecting various laminations in the stack for given input electromagnet mmf values. (a) Unsaturated electromagnet poles. (b) Saturated electromagnet poles.

B. Finite Element Results A Maxwell 2-D model that is directly comparable to the preceding analytical model was created and analyzed for a range of input mmf values applied to the coil [Fig. 1(a)]. The Maxwell model also had a pole thickness of 1mm and equal to ten. The results are shown in Fig. 8. As the input magnet mmf was increased, so too was the attractive force incident on each of the laminations in the stack. Fig. 8(a) shows the range of mmfs in which the magnet poles are unsaturated as relatively large increases in lamination forces result from increasing mmf increments. The curves where the mmf is 20 A [Fig. 8(a)] and 50 A [Fig. 8(b)] are identical in form, only moved one lamination along which conrms the repetitive force behavior hypothesis predicted by the analytical model. When the input mmf exceeded 100 A, the magnet poles became saturated whereby they could permit no more ux ow as shown in Fig. 8(b). This is evident as signicant increases in

mmf values from, say, 150 to 500 A resulted in meager force increases. Therefore, at least two 0.5-mm silicon steel sheets were required for the poles to ensure that three laminations were picked before pole saturation occurred. C. Prototype Results The electromagnet stack system was evaluated on the basis of the results from 1) the analytical model studies, 2) the Maxwell 2-D simulations, and 3) experiments on the prototype electromagnet. The normalized force values for the rst four laminations/plates and corresponding inputs are shown in Table I. It was apparent that the force distributions obtained using the analytical and nite element models were consistent and

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compared favorably with the ndings obtained using the prototype electromagnet. Due to the measurement methodology utilized, the normalized force acting on the rst lamination in the prototype was not available. Discrepancies between force values may be attributed to the modeling assumptions made in Sections III and IV. It is also apparent that when the lamination plates saturate, three-dimensional ux effects become more signicant as measured forces were found to be higher than their corresponding modeling predictions. The recorded force behavior magnitudes in the stack, however, were very similar in nature to those predicted and therefore validated the analytical system model developed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank G. MacNamara from the Transformers Manufacturing Company (TMC) for various technical assistance and materials provided. The authors also thank the technical staff at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, particularly S. Bicknell and B. Reid, for their assistance with the prototype electromagnet construction. REFERENCES
[1] G. R. Jones et al., Eds., Electrical Engineers Reference Book. London, U.K.: Butterworth, 1993. [2] S. Palmer, Transformer cores, Modern Power Transformer Practice, 1st ed., R. Feinberg, Ed. London, U.K.: MacMillan, 1979. [3] P. K. Wright and M. R. Cutkosky, Design of Grippers, Handbook of Industrial Robotics, S. Y. Nof, Ed., New York: Wiley, 1985, ch. 7, pp. 96111. [4] A. Senba, H. Kitahara, H. Ohsaki, and E. Masada, Characteristics of an electromagnetic levitation system using a bulk superconductor, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 32, pp. 50495051, Sept. 1996. [5] B. Postma et al., An electromagnetic gripper for robotic assembly of industrial transformer cores, Internal Report, Dept. Elect. Eng., Royal Melbourne Inst. Technol., Melbourne, Australia, 1997. [6] G. Doetsch, Guide to the Applications of the Laplace and Z-Transforms, 2nd ed. New York: Van Nostrand, 1971. [7] G. S. Brosan and J. T. Hayden, Advanced Electrical Power and Machines. London, U.K.: Pitman, 1966. [8] R. D. Strum and D. E. Kirk, First Principles of Discrete Systems and Digital Signal Processing, 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1989. [9] Maxwell 2-D Field SimulatorUsers Guide, vol. 12, Ansoft Corp., 1991. [10] R. Boll, Soft Magnetic MaterialsFundamentals, Alloys, Products, Properties, Products, Applications. London, U.K.: Heyden, 1979. [11] H. Pfutzner, Rotational magnetization and rotational losses of grain oriented silicon steel sheetsFundamental aspects and theory, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 30, pp. 28022807, Sept. 1994. [12] J. Liu, A. Basak, A. J. Moses, and G. H. Shirkoohi, A method of anisotropic steel modeling using nite element method with conrmation by experimental results, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 30, pp. 33913394, Sept. 1994. [13] MatlabReference Guide, 2nd ed., The Math Works Inc., MA, 1993.

VII. CONCLUSION The reliable picking of multiple exible ferrous plates simultaneously is currently an unresolved materials handling problem. Analytical modeling suggested the viability of an electromagnetic gripper to implement such a scheme, and this was subsequently conrmed utilizing nite element software. Under the inuence of such an electromagnet gripper, the lifting force on successive laminations in the stack decreases drastically. This is principally due to the air gaps present between laminations which ensure adequate force discrimination between adjacent laminations. A prototype electromagnet was developed and tested on a plate stack, verifying the force behavior predicted by the analytical and nite element models. Investigations to determine critical magnet parameters and optimal settings for each to achieve the best picking performance are currently being undertaken. A novel method for reliably overcoming problematic suction forces that are present between laminations in a stack is also under development.