A Study of Soft Magnetic Composite Suitable for High Efficiency of an Axial Gap Motor

An axial gap motor using neodymium bonded magnet, which our research group has proposed, achieved high torque density and high efficiency at high torque region in the previous paper. However, further improvement in efficiency is required in a wide operation range including not only high torque region but also low torque region. Hence, this paper discusses soft magnetic composite (SMC) suitable for high efficiency of the proposed axial gap motor. In the SMC, there is a trade-off relationship between low iron loss characteristic and high magnetic permeability. Therefore, at low torque region, the efficiency of the axial gap motor using the SMC was lower than that of the radial gap motor using the electromagnetic steel sheet. The proposed axial gap motor adopts a coreless rotor structure. Thus, it is possible to suppress the torque reduction, because the magnetic circuit of the proposed axial gap motor is hardly affected by the magnetic permeability of the stator core due to the large magnetic reluctance of the coreless rotor. For the proposed axial gap motor, HX3 of the newly material having lower iron loss characteristic than the electromagnetic steel sheet is developed, even though the magnetic permeability decreases. Consequently, improvement of efficiency and high torque are compatible by HX3. In this paper, we show the material properties of HX3 and the experimental results of a prototype machine of the proposed motor using HX3 of the newly material. From the experimental results, we report that the proposed motor can achieve improvement of efficiency around low torque region.