Comparison of Two Transverse Flux Machines for an Aerospace Application

More electric is a platform being widely adopted by the current generation of aircraft. It offers significant benefits in terms of fuel savings and flexibility of airframe design but relies on the development of torque dense machines. This paper documents the development of an air-cooled transverse flux machine for use in short-haul aircraft to improve on-ground operational efficiency. If its potential is to be realized, this topology of the machine comes with a new set of manufacturing challenges. Two competing machine layouts with different approaches toward their fabrication are discussed. Experimental results and experiences gained from overcoming the challenges of building the machines are presented. A combined phase topology with soft magnetic composite core-back is shown to give a better rated torque, whereas a separate phase bent lamination concept gives better overload capability.