Design of wheel motor using Maxwell 2D simulation

This paper presents a high efficiency direct wheel motor drive for electric vehicles (EVs). The proposed motor is a permanent magnet square-wave motor whose rotor with rare earth magnets forms the outside of the motor to be set within each rear wheel tyre to realize the direct drive. The inner stator with its windings is rigidly linked to the suspension and frame structure of the vehicle. In order to achieve the direct drive without any mechanical transmission for EVs, the wheel motor has been designed as a low-speed high-torque motor. The design and optimization of the motor was done with the aid of finite element electromagnetic field analysis using the Maxwell 2D Simulator software. The motor parameters and characteristics can be accurately calculated and predicted in terms of field computation and analysis results. The design procedure of the 6.6 kW, 1000 RPM wheel motor and its technical data are given in this paper.