Design and Analysis of Brushless DC Motors for Ceiling Fan Application

Permanent magnet brushless DC (PMBLDC) motor-based ceiling fans offer an efficient option to the widely-used single phase induction motor (SPIM) based ceiling fans. A PMBLDCM ceiling fan special features over a SPIM ceiling fan motor include lower input power consumption for the same air-delivery, higher efficiency, efficient speed control, and smaller form factor. This paper deals with the detailed design procedure of a three-phase exterior rotor permanent magnet brushless DC motor for ceiling fan application. The complete procedure is not yet reported for ceiling fans. The analytical design procedure is more computationally efficient than FEA and provides multiple designs covering a wide variety of objectives faster. Detailed analytical design procedure covering the initial sizing, stator, rotor design, and performance assessment is given for a 16-pole, 35 W, 350 rpm surface mounted PMBLDC motor. The results from the analytical design procedure are then validated using 2D FEA software (ANSYS Maxwell).