A Fully Levitated Cone-Shaped Lorentz-Type Self-Bearing Machine With Skewed Windings

Brushless dc coreless electric machines with double-rotor and single-stator configuration have very low losses, since the return path of the magnetic flux rotates with the permanent magnets. The eddy-current loss in the stator is additionally very small due to the lack of iron, making it ideal for kinetic energy storage. This paper presents a design for self-bearing rotor suspension, achieved by placing the stator windings skewed on a conical surface. A mathematical analysis of the force from a skewed winding confined to the surface of a cone was found. The parametric analytical expressions of the magnitude and direction of force and torque were verified by finite-element method simulations for one specific geometry. A dynamic model using proportional-integral-differential control was implemented in MATLAB/Simulink, and the currents needed for the self-bearing effect were found by solving an underdetermined system of linear equations. External forces, calculated from acceleration measurements from a bus in urban traffic, were added to simulate the dynamic environment of an electrical vehicle.