3 dimensional finite element analysis of hybrid stepping motors taking inter-lamination gap into account

In this paper, a simple modeling approach on 3D-FEA of hybrid stepping motors taking account of inter-lamination gap is presented. The inter-lamination gap is considered by the reluctance-based cross lamination model which gives the equivalent B-/spl mu/ data in the direction perpendicular to the lamination used for 3D-FEA. The proposed approach is easily implemented without any penalties such as an increase in the number of elements or the computation time. The effectiveness of the proposed modeling approach is examined by the comparisons between the experimental and the calculated torque characteristics using two hybrid stepping motors with Alnico and thin rare earth magnets respectively.