Evaluation of stator and rotor lamination materials for thermal management of a PMaSRM

In this paper, the thermal impact of using different steel laminations in the stator and the rotor of a permanentmagnet assisted synchronous reluctance machine designed for an automotive application is studied. In this regard, two main parameters of the steel lamination materials, thickness and amount of alloy content in weight percent, are studied. Frequency characteristics of the iron losses of the studied materials are used to estimate iron losses in the stator and rotor laminations. An accurate lumped parameter model including a housing water jacket cooling system is used to model thermal effects and estimate the temperature distribution in critical parts of the machine. The predicted temperature distributions in the machines show that using lamination materials with different amounts of alloy content leads to 2%-10% variation in the temperatures of rotor and winding. However, using materials with different thicknesses results in substantial temperature changes in critical parts of the machine (up to 75%).