Demagnetization Testing for a Mixed-Grade Dovetail Permanent-Magnet Machine

A dovetail machine is a novel design developed to solve the strength problems of traditional buried magnet machines. A mixed-grade construction can be easily applied to a dovetail machine, because a dovetail machine has several magnets in a single pole in different positions. The basic idea of the mixed-grade construction is to use high intrinsic coercivity material in the positions of the high demagnetization risk and high remanence material in the positions of low demagnetization risk. We have developed a demagnetization model that takes into account the temperature dependence of the properties of the permanent-magnet materials to model a dovetail permanent-magnet motor with mixed-grade construction. We compared the model with a real motor. By comparing the testing and the calculations, we show that our demagnetization model can predict the demagnetization of the permanent magnets with reasonable accuracy. We discuss the benefits of the mixed-grade construction in a dovetail machine.