Outer-Ferrite-PM-rotor BLAC motor characterization: FEM assisted optimal design and preliminary experiments

This article is dedicated to design a Ferrite-PM outer rotor-synchronous machine for home appliances. The target requirement is to maximize efficiency at 4500 r/min and 1 kW. A 9 stator teeth/8 rotor poles configuration topology with rotor surface Ferrite PM is chosen for the investigation. To meet this requirement, a novel optimal design procedure employing the Hooke Jeeves algorithm and an analytical model of the BLAC machine is used. The novelty consists in using FEA-based online corrections of the analytical model, embedded in the optimization process to improve accuracy of the analytical model and reduce the computation effort. Further, finite element analysis of the optimization results is presented and compared with experimental results on a built prototype.