A Cogging Torque Minimization Procedure for Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors Based on a Progressive Modification of the Rotor Lamination Geometry

This article describes a simple cogging torque minimization procedure for interior permanent magnet synchronous machines (IPMSMs), consisting of a progressive modification of the rotor lamination geometry. This procedure can be generalized for the main topologies of PMSM, independently of the number of stator slots or the location of the permanent magnets. For this purpose, a basic IPMSM structure is analyzed by means of the FEM (finite element method) approach, and then, several other IPMSM geometries, obtained by adequately modifying the rotor lamination geometry of the basic IPMSM model without changing its stator configuration, are proposed and discussed. The trends of the cogging torque generated by each model are computed and compared. From this comparison, it is demonstrated that, by simply acting on the shape of the rotor lamination and by choosing the optimized pattern, the cogging torque components can be theoretically canceled.