Design and Optimization of Soft Magnetic Composite Machines With Finite Element Methods

In this paper, a synthesis of design methodologies for electromagnetic devices made with soft magnetic composite (SMC) material is presented. To realize efficient and low-cost SMC devices, it is necessary to benefit from interesting isotropic SMC material properties such as 3-D flux circulation path. In this case, the best approach is to carry out a topological structure research and perform a global optimization using physical models. However, the iterative optimization process can be computationally intensive and some compromises should be found between accuracy and computation time. One way is to use coarse models with important simplifying hypotheses but the optimal solution is often not valid. In this case, one can perform a limited number of finite element (FE) simulations to compute some correction coefficients and improve optimization convergence to a valid optimal solution. Another way is to perform the device optimization by using directly FE models with low mesh density and several simplifications of the device geometry. Such design approaches are illustrated by three concrete realizations with SMC material.