Investigation of a five-phase dual-rotor permanent magnet synchronous motor used for electric vehicles

Abstract

This paper presents a novel five-phase permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM), which contains dual rotors and a single stator, equivalent to two five-phase motors working together. Thus, this kind of motor has the potential of good fault tolerant capability and high torque density, which makes it appropriate for use in electric vehicles. In view of the different connection types, the inside and outside stator windings can be driven in series or parallel, which results in the different performances of the magnetomotive force (MMF) and torque under open-circuit fault conditions. By decomposing the MMF, the reason that torque ripple increases after open-circuit faults is explained, and the relationship between MMF and torque is revealed. Then, the current control strategy is applied to adjust the open-circuit faults, and the electromagnetic analysis and MMF harmonics analysis are performed to interpret the phenomenon that the torque ripple is still larger than in the normal situation. The investigations are verified by finite element analysis results. © 2014 by the authors.