A Comprehensive Magnet Defect Fault Analysis of Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motors

In this paper, magnet defect faults and their corresponding reflections on permanent-magnet (PM) motor stator variables are investigated. An analytical approach based on a partitioned magnetic equivalent circuit is developed to determine the influence of magnet defect faults on PM motor variables. Due to the flexibility of the proposed method, the effect of each rotor magnets on each stator coil can be calculated to obtain the induced back electromotove force under faulty cases and observe the fault-related signatures in the frequency spectrum. The proposed tool significantly reduces the computational burden and provides sufficient accuracy, which significantly eases to simulate several magnet fault scenarios and examine detailed topology dependence relations in shorter time. Different cases, including various numbers and locations of defected magnets, winding configurations, and crack direction effects, are studied to understand the magnet defect influences comprehensively. The experiments and simulations are carried out at different speeds and load conditions to fully characterize the fault signatures. Comparative 2-D finite-element simulations and experimental results justify the theoretical magnet defect fault analysis and show the efficacy of the proposed approach.