Investigation of the Impact of Various Stator Slot Configurations on Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors

Permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) are widely used for various industrial applications such as robotics, industrial drives, solar water pumping. Thus, a lot of research on the various performance of PMSM motors are ongoing. Some of the research includes rotor configuration, torque ripple, control techniques of PMSM and their magnetic design. The stator slot configuration has significant impact on the performance parameters of PMSM motors. Most importantly the torque profile and stator winding currents are highly influenced by the structure of stator slot. There are few research works are available in the exiting literatures which discuss about the impact of stator slot orientation on motor performances. In this paper, the impact of various stator slot configurations has been investigated on PMSM motors in terms of torque ripple profile, solid loss and stator winding current along with its total harmonic distortion (THD). Using the Ansys maxwell software package, a couple of 2D and 3D numerical models are designed and investigated by changing the stator slot geometry of PMSM motors, and the resultant torques and stator currents are recorded. This analysis could be a promising solution to the industrial engineers while selecting PMSM motors based on suitable stator slot geometry for specific industrial applications.