Novel Quasi-Three-Dimensional Modeling of Axial Flux In-Wheel Motor With Permanent Magnet Skew

This paper presents a characteristic analysis of axial flux permanent magnet machines (AFPMMs) for in-wheel electric vehicles. Preferentially, a novel quasi-3-D model is developed for the fast and accurate design of AFPMMs. In electromagnetic field analysis, combined with field reconstruction method, the computation time of 2-D solutions is significantly reduced. With the use of time sweeping of the basis function, only the static finite element (FE) analysis is performed to calculate the air-gap flux distribution at the entire rotor position, whereas the conventional 2-D solutions require a transient FE analysis. In the shape sweeping process of the basis function, the virtual air-gap Section method is introduced to take into account that the ratio of slot opening to slot pitch is different depending on the radius of analysis plane, which causes errors in the analysis results of the conventional quasi-3-D method. The virtual air-gap sections are obtained by interpolation of the spatial field between the mapped cylindrical planes. The proposed technique reduces the number of 2-D analysis planes required for high accuracy in the conventional quasi-3-D method, and it can also predict the air-gap magnetic flux distribution for skewed permanent magnets without additional FE analysis. Finally, using the magnetic fields calculated in the proposed method, the electromagnetic performances of the AFPMM are calculated, such as load torque, cogging torque, attraction force, and back-EMF. The proposed method was used for the design of the AFPMM for a 5 kW in-wheel motor. The validity of analytical results is confirmed by 3-D FE and experimental results.