Research on an Axial Magnetic-Field-Modulated Brushless Double Rotor Machine

Double rotor machine, an electronic continuously variable transmission, has great potential in application of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), wind power and marine propulsion. In this paper, an axial magnetic-field-modulated brushless double rotor machine (MFM-BDRM), which can realize the speed decoupling between the shaft of the modulating ring rotor and that of the permanent magnet rotor is proposed. Without brushes and slip rings, the axial MFM-BDRM offers significant advantages such as excellent reliability and high efficiency. Since the number of pole pairs of the stator is not equal to that of the permanent magnet rotor, which differs from the traditional permanent magnet synchronous machine, the operating principle of the MFM-BDRM is deduced. The relations of corresponding speed and toque transmission are analytically discussed. The cogging toque characteristics, especially the order of the cogging torque are mathematically formulated. Matching principle of the number of pole pairs of the stator, that of the permanent magnet rotor and the number of ferromagnetic pole pieces is inferred since it affects MFM-BDRM’s performance greatly, especially in the respect of the cogging torque and electromagnetic torque ripple. The above analyses are assessed with the three-dimensional (3D) finite-element method (FEM).