Title :
Development of low cost multi-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motors with unipolar current excitations
Author :
Goplarathnam, T. ; Waikar, Shailesh ; Toliyat, Hamid A. ; Arefeen, Mohammed S. ; Moreira, Julio C.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng., Texas A&M Univ., College Station, TX, USA
Abstract :
This paper evaluates the performance of different brushless DC (BLDC) motors when excited with unipolar currents. Exciting the BLDC motor with unipolar currents reduces the cost of the drive by decreasing the number of switches used in the converter. Two-phase, three-phase, four-phase and five-phase BLDC motors are considered in this study. 2-D finite element method (FEM) is used to obtain the back-EMF waveforms of the motors, which are then used to calculate the dynamic torque outputs with different current excitations. It is shown that by a proper combination of slots/pole ratio of the machine and unipolar current excitation waveform, lower torque ripple can be obtained than with the conventional 3-phase, 12-slot BLDC motor with 120° bipolar current excitation
Keywords :
brushless DC motors; costing; economics; exciters; finite element analysis; machine theory; machine windings; power convertors; 2-D finite element method; back-EMF waveforms; current excitation waveform; dynamic torque outputs; lower torque ripple; multi-phase brushless DC motors; power converter; slots/pole ratio; unipolar current excitation; Brushless DC motors; Brushless motors; Costs; DC motors; Permanent magnet motors; Reluctance motors; Rotors; Switches; Switching converters; Torque;
Conference_Titel :
Industry Applications Conference, 1999. Thirty-Fourth IAS Annual Meeting. Conference Record of the 1999 IEEE
Conference_Location :
Phoenix, AZ
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-5589-X
DOI :
10.1109/IAS.1999.799951
