Impact of Pole and Slot Combination on Vibrations and Noise of Electromagnetic Origins in Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors

In low- to medium-power-rated brushless machines, noise of electromagnetic origin is generally prevailing over mechanical and aerodynamic sources. The appropriate combination of pole and slot of a permanent magnet synchronous motor is one of the keys to its performances among which stands noise reduction. This paper investigates configurations regarding this aspect for distributed overlapping and single-layer concentrated nonoverlapping winding configurations. Chosen combinations are 8 poles 48 slots (8p48s), 8p72s, 46p48s and 50p48s. The air-gap flux density is obtained by 2-D finite element analysis (FEA), allowing to compute the electromagnetic pressure. It then serves as input of mechanical and acoustical 3-D FEA models of the stator with carter.