Comparative study of a high-speed permanent magnet motor when powered by different methods

The authors present the multi-physical field performances comparative research for a 30 kW, 30,000 r/min high-speed permanent magnet motor (HSPMM) when the motor is powered by the sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) voltage inverter and sinusoidal voltage source, respectively. Firstly, electromagnetic performances including torque, voltage and current of the HSPMM with different driving methods are compared and analysed by the finite element method (FEM). Considering the effects of high operation frequency, power losses of the HSPMM with different driving methods under full-load conditions are calculated and compared with the skin effect and the proximity effect considered for HSPMM winding copper loss estimation. Based on the above analysis, a prototype driven by the SPWM voltage inverter is manufactured, with its electromagnetic and thermal performances tested and verified. In addition, several influencing factors of the HSPMM rotor eddy current loss are studied, with their effects on the HSPMM under different driving methods further analysed and compared as well. A novel equivalent power supply method is proposed to effectively save the calculation time with a negligible error. Finally, in order to further improve the heat dissipation capacity of the HSPMM, a novel cooling method is intensively studied with its influencing factors further analysed. The cooling effect of the novel cooling method and the temperature of the motor components are verified and calculated by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method.