Investigation on Operational Envelops and Efficiency Maps of Electrically Excited Machines for Electrical Vehicle Applications

In this paper, the operational envelops and efficiency maps of an electrically excited (EE) machine with/without employing flux weakening control via armature current and/or with/without the field excitation regulating are obtained and comprehensively compared for electric vehicle applications. It shows that even in EE machines, only using the field excitation regulating but without the flux weakening armature current control, the maximum power at high speed is not constant but inversely proportional to the machine speed. Only by employing the flux weakening armature current control, the maximum constant power operation at high-speed region can be achieved while the operational high-speed region can be greatly extended. The maximum efficiency in this extended high-speed region can be achieved when both the field excitation and flux weakening d-axis armature current change proportionally. The main benefit of the field excitation regulating is that the efficiency in low-torque region can be significantly improved. All the analyses are validated analytically.