This paper presents a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the modeling and analysis methods for the multidisciplinary design of electric motors for various applications including vehicular power and propulsion systems and electrified powertrains. It covers the important aspects of different engineering domains, such as dynamic modeling, loss calculations, demagnetization analysis, thermal modeling, acoustic noise and vibration analysis, and mechanical stress modeling. This paper intends to guide the electric motor designers through examples and results on how to apply different analysis techniques on electric motors.

In this paper, an improved deadbeat predictive current control (DPCC) method with parameters identification for surface-mounted permanent magnet synchronous machines (SPMSMs) is proposed. With the proposed DPCC method, zero steady-state current error and deadbeat dynamic current response could be achieved, even with inaccurate initial motor parameters. On basis of the conventional DPCC method, a novel parameters identification for the stator resistance and inductance is developed, which is the main contribution of this paper. The proposed parameters identification method works based on a reconstructed characteristic vector from the disturbance observer with current injection. Compared with traditional recursive-least-square (RLS) methods, the proposed method can be implemented with greatly reduced computation burden. Additionally, since the design is established based on the fully-discretized model, the effectiveness will be guaranteed on both low-frequency and high-frequency motors, which is a significant advantage of the proposed method.

In this paper, core loss characteristics of stator permanent-magnet (PM) machines are analyzed and calculated, in which the unique dc-biased magnetic induction is taken into account. The flux density variation patterns in some key points in a doubly salient PM (DSPM) machine are analyzed by the two-dimensional time-stepping finite-element method. To calculate the core loss of stator and other minor hysteresis loops under dc magnetic bias, core loss characteristics of silicon steel sheet under dc-biased induction condition are first tested by a simple test system based on traditional Epstein frame and a functional relationship between the change of dc-biased induction and hysteresis loss is proposed. Two core loss calculation methods considering rotational magnetization based on flux density waveform are improved to take the influence of dc-biased magnetic induction into consideration. The calculation results are verified by experiments on a prototype DSPM machine. The conclusions are also applicable to other kinds of stator PM machines.

Inductive power transfer (IPT) is becoming increasingly popular in stationary electric vehicle (EV) charging systems. In this paper, the influence of the different IPT coupler geometries on the performance factors such as efficiency, power density, misalignment tolerance, and stray field is studied. Four different coupler topologies, namely the circular, rectangular, double-D (DD-DD), and the double-D transmitter with double-D-quadrature receiver (DD-DDQ) are considered in this study. The electromagnetic behavior of the couplers is modeled using three-dimensional finite-element method, which is validated by experiments on a laboratory prototype. A multi-objective optimization (MOO) framework is developed to analyze the Pareto tradeoffs between conflicting performance metrics for the couplers. Optimization results depict that the circular topology performs best among the selected topologies regarding higher coupling coefficient, and efficiency for similar active mass and coupler area. Circular and rectangular couplers perform better than the polarized couplers like DD-DD and DD-DDQ regarding stray field exposure in both vertical and lateral direction of the coupler position in the EV. However, polarized couplers show more tolerance toward misalignment compared to circular and rectangular couplers. Thus, this study provides information regarding the specific strengths and weaknesses of different coupler topologies, which can be used during the initial design phase.

This paper investigates the surface-mounted permanent-magnet (SPM) and the interior permanent-magnet (IPM) motors for high-speed applications. An SPM motor and an IPM motor are designed with the same power/speed rate and the same key dimensions. Finite-element analysis is used to compare the mechanical, electromagnetic, and antidemagnetization performances of the two motors, and lumped parameter thermal networks are involved to compare their thermal performances. It can be concluded from the comparisons that the IPM motor has comparable electromagnetic performances with the SPM motor in high-speed operations, and its costs and torque per PM weight are superior to those of the SPM motor. However, its rotor structure is not as robust and is prone to irreversible demagnetization.

Core-loss prediction is an important issue in design and analysis of permanent-magnet (PM) motors. Because of the diverse structure, flux distribution, and rotational variation of flux, it is difficult to predict the core loss in a machine exactly. In this paper, a core-loss model for the PM motor is introduced in which flux variation loci in different parts of the motor are predicted by carrying out a finite-element transient analysis. Since the flux variation pattern is complicated, an improved equation based on the conventional three-term expression is used for core-loss calculation. The core-loss model is developed totally in ANSYS parametric design language as a parametric model and it can be used easily for different types of PM motors. Calculation and experiments on a high-speed PM motor have shown that the model can produce results that agree with the experimental ones.