The development of an FEA design environment model and comparison with traditional design and test data for the design of electrical machine

The paper describes a design methodology for electrical machines which has been specially developed for in-house use, based on the design environment (DE) of a well established electromagnetic finite element analysis (EM FEA) package. The modelling methodology allows iteration between the FEA code and a traditional spreadsheet design environment, thus permitting the machine/system design to exploit the power of EM FEA, without having to invest the time and effort required (typically several person-years) to become on expert in EM FEA. The design environment available within the FE package of vector fields envisages a futuristic design of various devices 'by menu'.