Novel Multi-layer Design and Additive Manufacturing Fabrication of a High Power Density and Efficiency Interior PM Motor

This paper presents a novel interior Permanent Magnet (PM) motor design with alternate layers of PM and Soft Magnetic Composite (SMC) designed and optimized according to the specifications of a Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) traction motor. The Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulations show that the optimized layered design can achieve a higher efficiency and a similar torque density compared to a commercial interior PM motor, while using a PM material with 40% of the remnant flux density. The proposed configuration can be fabricated using cold spray Additive Manufacturing (AM) allowing the layered rotor structure to have higher mechanical strength that can enable the motor operation at higher speeds achieving 50% higher power density or more.