Modeling of an axial-flux interior PMs machine for an automotive application using magnetic equivalent circuit

This paper presents a nonlinear adaptive magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC) of an axial-flux interior permanent magnets (AFIPM) machine with double-stator/single-rotor and 18-slots/16-poles. Using a quasi 3-D MEC, the magnetic flux density is calculated in the different parts of the machine, as well as the flux linkage, the back electromotive force (EMF) and the electromagnetic torque. The influence of the slices number is analyzed. In order to evaluate the reliability of the proposed model, the results are compared to 3-D finite-element analysis (FEA). The computation time can be divided by 20, with an error lower than 2%.