Cogging Force Reduction in Tubular Permanent Magnet Actuators

This paper describes a method to reduce cogging force in the design of a tubular slotted PM actuator for industrial applications. A comprehensive analysis is undertaken by considering a pre-established design in coherence with extended 2D finite element analysis, which enables the determination of the cogging force associated both with the stator slotting and finite length of the ferromagnetic armature core of a 3-phase slotted tubular brushless permanent-magnet actuator. In order to reduce the total cogging force, sinusoidal skewing is implemented on the tubular structure. This paper investigates the validity of the cogging force predictions and the effectiveness of skewing techniques using a representation of the tubular structure in a 2D axial rotating finite element model.