In a paper published in the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, Ulrich Langer, Antoine Laurain, Houcine Meftahi and Kevin Sturm described a new mathematical method for obtaining peak performance from an electric motor.
Motors in general can be fairly complex machines, as anyone who’s ever looked under the hood to examine a modern internal combustion engine can tell you. Even for a relatively simple design, a motor has several moving parts that can be subject to energy loss through friction, noise and vibration. For electrical motors, such as those found in computers, washing machines and assembly tools, many of the same physics apply.
For Langer and his group, the key to designing a more efficient motor involves refining the mechanical rotation at the motor’s interior core to reduce or eliminate perturbations that contribute to efficiency losses. Echoing the sentiment of his colleagues, Langer stated, "A smoother rotation of the rotor can increase the energy efficiency of the motor and, at the same time, reduce unwanted side effects such as noise and vibrations."
To begin their redesign, the Hanning team identified a region within the core of an interior permanent magnet brushless electric motor. Within that design scope, the team began using the shape optimization computer algorithms they had developed to explore how different boundary geometries would affect the rotational mechanics of the motor.
After several design iterations driven by use of the algorithm, the researchers began to realize an improvement in motor efficiency that eventually reached 27 percent.
"By means of shape optimization methods, optimal motor geometries that could not be imagined beforehand can now be determined," said Langer.
Buoyed by their most recent shape optimization success, Langer and his group have plans to continue their work on increasing motor efficiency and refining their optimization algorithms to produce even better results. With this optimization methodology, who knows, one day we might have motors so efficient that they challenge preconceptions about what’s possible in power generation.