Application of Surrogate Models to the Multiphysics Sizing of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors

The application of surrogate models in engineering design is becoming popular due to their mimicking capabilities. In the design of electric motor drives for example, where a control-drive circuit is connected directly to the electric motor, the finite element simulations of the integrated motor drive system can be time-consuming. A complete motor simulation can run into several hours, if not days. Therefore, the main contribution of this article resides in the effort to address the computational burden associated with the design process by replacing the finite element models with surrogate models to achieve a faster design process. Briefly, the procedure involves filling the design space with multiple motor geometries created from an 8-pole 12-slot surface-mounted permanent magnet (SPM) synchronous motor. Then, a multiphysics performance evaluation is performed over the design space for different switching frequencies over a range of dc bus voltages. The design variables of the motor, the inverter, and the calculated performance objectives are used to train a collection of surrogate models to obtain the objective functions that could potentially be used as possible replacements for the finite element models in order to reduce the solution time.