A Novel Rotor Eddy Current Loss Estimation Method for Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machines with Small Inductance and a Conductive Rotor Sleeve

Typically, permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs) with small inductance can achieve a higher power density and higher power factor. Thus, in many industrial applications, more and more PMSMs are being designed with small inductance. Compared with traditional PMSMs, current harmonics in small inductance PMSMs are much more abundant, and the amplitudes are usually high. These current harmonics will cause large eddy current losses (ECLs) on the rotor, making the estimation of ECLs necessary in the design stage. Currently, ECL estimation methods are usually based on frequency order information, which cannot tell the travelling direction of the harmonic magneto-wave, resulting in the inaccuracy of the estimation. This article proposes a novel estimation method based on the mechanism of the formation of space-vector pulse width modulation (PWM), which considers both the frequency order and travelling direction of the harmonic wave, resulting in the improvement of the accuracy. Besides this, by using double Fourier analysis (DFA) instead of traditional fast Fourier analysis (FFA), the predicted frequencies of the current harmonics are more accurate and free of the troubles caused by traditional FFA-based methods. Simulation study and experiments are conducted to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.