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IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS 1

Multimaterial Topology Optimization Method of

Surface-Mounted PMSM Rotor Poles Based
on Variable Density Representation
Xinghua He , Liang Yan , Senior Member, IEEE, Pengjie Xiang , Nannan Du ,
Xiaoshuai Liu , Graduate Student Member, IEEE, I-Ming Chen , Fellow, IEEE, and Haifeng Hu

Abstract—Conventionally, the designers of electrical ma- computational speed is increased by improving the objec-
chines assume the employment of regular shaped magnets, tive function and the arbitrary volume constraints become
such as rectangular, sector, or tiled-shapes. The geometry clear by combining size and topology optimization. To vali-
of magnet poles is fixed, and the design purpose is mainly date the design method, theoretical, numerical and experi-
to optimize the dimensional values. However, these regular mental studies are conducted. First, the operating principle,
shapes employed may not be the best choice, unavoid- design variables, constrains, optimization objective, and
ably limiting the final design result, and compromising the procedure of the method are introduced in detail. Then, the
output performance of the electrical machines. An alterna- optimization method is implemented into the rotor design
tive scheme is to conduct topology optimization for rotor of one surface-mounted electric machine, and the result
poles. By this method, the geometrical shape of magnets is presented and discussed. Subsequently, the magnetic
along with the iron core is no longer fixed, but automati- flux density and torque output of electric machine with the
cally obtained through the optimal distribution of materials, optimized rotor poles is compared with conventional de-
such as iron, magnet, and air. It helps to achieve better sign, and it shows that the former can achieve better output
optimization results with less shape constrains. Therefore, performance relatively. Finally, one research prototype of
this article proposes a multimaterial topology optimiza- the electrical machine is developed, and experiments are
tion method based on variable density representation for carried out on torque output and back-electromotive force.
surface-mounted permanent-magnet synchronous motor to The experimental results validate the optimization method.
obtain an optimal rotor pole pattern, and thus improve the
output performance of electrical machines, especially the Index Terms—Magnetic pole pattern, permanent-magnet
torque density, which is crucial in aerospace industry. The synchronous motor (PMSM), surface-mounted pole, topol-
ogy optimization, torque density.

Manuscript received 12 January 2024; revised 15 April 2024; ac-

cepted 10 May 2024. Recommended by Technical Editor G. Rizzello I. INTRODUCTION
and Senior Editor S. Katsura. This work was supported in part by the
ERMANENT magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) with
National Key R&D Program of China under Grant 2022YFE0113700, in
part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant
52130505 and Grant 51875013, in part by Zhejiang Provincial Natural
Science Foundation of China under Grant LD24E050005, in part by
P surface-mounted magnet rotor can achieve large torque
density, high efficiency, and fast dynamic response [1], [2],
Ningbo Key Scientific and Technological project under Grant 2022Z040, and thus have wide applications in aerospace technology [3],
in part by the Aeronautical Science Foundation of China under Grant [4], [5]. In practical engineering applications, the designers of
20200007051002, and in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for
the Central Universities. (Corresponding author: Liang Yan.) PMSM usually select the number of slots and poles first, and then
Xinghua He, Pengjie Xiang, Nannan Du, and Xiaoshuai Liu are with determine the stator bore through empirical computation [6]. The
the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang magneto-motive force of the surface mounted PMSM mainly
University, Beijing 100191, China (e-mail: [email protected];
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]. comes from the permanent magnets [7], [8], [9], so the optimiza-
cn). tion design of the rotor impacts the output performance of the
Liang Yan is with the School of Automation Science and Electrical electrical machine significantly, especially the torque density,
Engineering, Science and Technology on Aircraft Control Laboratory,
Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China, and also with the Ningbo which is crucial in aerospace industry.
Institute of Technology, Beihang University, Ningbo 315800, China One typical optimization method is the parameter sweep or
(e-mail: [email protected]). sensitivity analysis approach. For example, the influence of
I-Ming Chen is with the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engi-
neering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798 (e-mail: pole arc coefficient on torque characteristics was studied by
[email protected]). Yang et al. [10]. The pole arc coefficient is optimized through
Haifeng Hu is with the Institute of Beijing Aerospace Automatic Control parameter sweep approach to achieve the lowest cogging torque.
Institute, Beijing 100854, China, also with the National Key Laboratory
of Aerospace Intelligence Control, Beijing 100854, China, and also with Similarly, Zheng et al. [11] employed an eccentric magnetic
the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang pole and optimized the eccentric distance through the same
University, Beijing 100191, China (e-mail: [email protected]). approach. However, in these studies, only one parameter is
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TMECH.2024.3400985. swept to obtain the optimal solution, which may constrains the
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMECH.2024.3400985 performance improvement more or less. Furthermore, although
1083-4435 © 2024 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

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2 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS

Fig. 2. Design concept of the proposed topology optimization method.

problems related to asymmetric magnetic poles [27] and non-

linear permanent magnets by Cherriére et al. [28] there are still
Fig. 1. Relationship between topology, shape and size optimization.
some challenges as follows.
1) Low computational speed: Density-based topology opti-
the cogging torque is reduced, the average torque output is also mization relies on mesh of finite element analysis (FEA).
compromised. Calculating the average output torque of the motor takes
To overcome the above problems, the parameter sweep ap- a considerable amount of time.
proach with multiple variables have been proposed by re- 2) Arbitrary volume constraint: For current topology opti-
searchers. For example, the harmonic compensation pole is mization methods of surface-mounted PMSM, the pro-
proposed to reduce the cogging torque and maintain the average portion of material volume is determined arbitrarily,
torque of surface-mounted PMSM by Zeng et al. [12] and the which may compromise the output performance in a
authors in [13], [14], and [15]. The sinusoidal arc shaping with certain degree.
the third order harmonic term and the inverse cosine shaping Therefore, the purpose of this article is to propose one
with the third order harmonic term are optimized simultaneously. multimaterial topology optimization method based on variable
Other methods have been proposed to achieve similar effects of density representation. The computational cost of topology op-
harmonic compensation [16], [17]. These optimization methods timization is reduced by improving the objective function and
only considers the influence of magnets and neglects the impact the arbitrary volume constraints become clear by combining size
of iron, which may constrains the performance improvement of optimization and topology optimization.
the electrical machine. Therefore, Xiang et al. [18] proposed one The rest of this article is organized as follows. In Section II, the
high-performance concentrated-flux-type PMSM with irregular operating principle of the multimaterial topology optimization
magnets and iron poles. The parameter sweep approach with method based on variable density representation is introduced,
multiple variables is employed to optimize the magnet and the and the design variables, the constraints and the optimization
iron together, and thus to improve the torque output and reduce objectives are presented. In Section III, the proposed optimiza-
the rotor mass. tion method is implemented into one surface-mounted radial
However, so far, most design optimization methods for PMSM magnetized PMSM, and the optimization result is discussed. In
assume that the magnet and iron geometry is fixed or expressed Section IV, the performances of the PMSM by the proposed
by parametric equations, and only the dimensional values or optimization method are compared with that of conventional
parameters are optimized. As shown in Fig. 1, these studies typi- optimization method. in Section V, one research prototype of
cally focus on size optimization or shape optimization in detailed the electrical machine with the optimized structure has been
structural design [19]. It can only change the dimensional of a developed, and experiments are conducted to validate the output
hole, but cannot transform one hole to more holes. Thus, they performance. Finally, Section VI concludes this article.
may overlook other topologies that could potentially achieve
better performance. These topological shapes can be achieved II. OPTIMIZATION METHOD
through topology optimization, which modifies the distribution
A. Operating Principle
of materials [20]. To deal with multimaterials optimization in
design of magnetic devices, the optimized material distribution Fig. 2 shows the schematic configuration of the magnetic pole.
method is presented by Dyck and Lowther [21]. To achieve Assume that the rotor design domain is filled with small ele-
the maximum magnetic field strength in a specific region, the ments. Assigning different material properties to these elements
magnetization direction of the permanent magnet (PM) is also forms various material distributions within the design domain.
optimized [22], [23], [24]. This technique is also employed in Material distribution is altered by controlling the material prop-
the design of interior PMSM [25], [26]. erties within the elements, thereby forming different topological
Nevertheless, research on topology optimization for surface- structures. In terms of electromagnetic characteristics, there are
mounted PMSM is still limited. Although studies addressing three types of materials in the design domain, i.e., permanent

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HE et al.: MULTIMATERIAL TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION METHOD OF SURFACE-MOUNTED PMSM ROTOR POLES 3

magnet, iron, and air. Since the radial magnetization pattern is

widely employed in electrical machines, this study focuses on
the optimization of this magnet pattern. The magnetization di-
rection of the permanent magnet is represented with e = (0, 1),
i.e., the direction of the white arrows in Fig. 2.
The magnetic flux density is expressed with magnetic vector
potential as
B = ∇ × A. (1)
The regions with PM, iron, and air are characterized with
⎧ Fig. 3. Smooth and clear boundaries after filtering and projection.
⎨μ0 μrec H + Brem , for PM
B= μ0 μr H , for iron (2)
⎩
μ0 H , for air the boundary becomes smoother after filtering, but intermediate
where Brem is remanence of PM and Brem = Brem e, μ0 is (gray) variables increase, leading to a fuzzy boundary. However,
vacuum permeability, μr is relative permeability, and μrec is the α and β in every elements should be equal to either 0 or 1 for
recoil permeability of PM. Since the recoil permeability μrec ≈ practical manufacturing. To reduce the number of intermediate
1 for neodymium magnets and the values of Brem  and μr are values and make the material boundary clear, the hyperbolic tan-
variable, the constitutive equation of the three materials can be gent projection [30] is employed to project the density variable
uniformly expressed as to 0 or 1, i.e.,
tanh (kα (αf − α0 )) + tanh (kα α0 )
B = μ0 μr H + Brem e. (3) α=
tanh (kα (1 − α0 )) + tanh (kα α0 )
The magnetic field of the rotor is a solenoid field because
tanh (kβ (βf − β0 )) + tanh (kβ β0 )
there is no current passing through it. Thus β= (7)
tanh (kβ (1 − β0 )) + tanh (kβ β0 )
∇ × H = 0. (4)
where kα and kβ are slope of the projections, and α0 and β0
By calculating the curl on both sides of (3) and then substitut- are midpoint of the projections. Then, μr and Brem  can be
ing (1) into it, the corresponding governing equation for three expressed with α and β [23] as
materials is
    Brem  = Brem αm (1 − β)m
1 1  
∇× ∇×A =∇× Brem e . (5) 1 1
μ0 μr μ0 μr =1+ − 1 β n (1 − α)n (8)
μr μiron (A)
When the relative permeability and remanence of material are
assigned with different values, (5) represents different materi- where Brem is the remanence of PM. m and n are penalty
als [23]. By substituting material properties into each element, coefficients of remanence and permeance, respectively. They are
the electromagnetic field distribution can thus be obtained. Fig. 2 employed to weaken the role of intermediate values, and further
illustrates a possible distribution of materials and the potential reduce these values during the optimization process. μiron (A)
radial magnetic flux density waveform in air gap under the is the relative permeability of the back iron, which changes with
corresponding material distribution state. Another point to note respect to the magnetic field, i.e.,
is that the case with μr > 1 & Brem  > 0 should be avoided 1 μ0 f −1 (∇ × A)
since it does not exist in reality for neodymium magnets. For = (9)
μiron (A) ∇ × A
other types of PM materials, such as ferrite type PM and AlNiCo,
topology optimization methods are also applicable, albeit with where f −1 is the inverse function of B = f (H). B = f (H) is
consideration for the nonlinearity of magnetic materials [28]. the relationship between flux density B and magnetic intensity
H of a material, which is obtained by magnetization curve test.
B. Representation of Design Variables The final solution of α and β should be as close as possible to 0
or 1, which is conducive to forming smooth and clear boundaries.
Two density variables are defined to control the material prop-
Different combinations of α and β can represent three material
erty of each element, i.e., αc ∈ [0, 1] and βc ∈ [0, 1]. Density
properties as given in Table I.
variables are assigned within elements, so numerical artifacts,
such as checkerboards, zig–zags, or wavy boundaries, may occur
C. Constraints for the Design
during the optimization process due to mesh dependency. There-
fore, Helmholtz filtering method [29] is used for the density As given in Table I, when α = 1 and β = 1, the element
variables, i.e., is filled with air. It does not influence the air-gap magnetic
field and the torque output. This case is automatically excluded
αf = R∇2 αf + αc , βf = R∇2 βf + βc (6)
during the optimization. Hence, α = 1 represents PM and β = 1
where αf and βf are filtered density variable, and R depends on represents iron. To achieve lightweight of the rotor, the mass of
the size of elements. As shown in Fig. 3, take α for example, the permanent magnet and the back iron, i.e., the percentage

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4 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS

TABLE I 1) Improved computational speed: Direct computation of the

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MATERIAL AND DENSITY VARIABLE
average torque requires the establishment of a simulation
model for the individual motor unit, involving transient
field simulations or steady-state simulations across multi-
ple rotor positions. This results in a significant increase in
computational workload. On the other hand, with the se-
lected objective function (12), only one magnetic pole and
one steady-state simulation are required in the calculation.
This results in a significant reduction in computational
workload and an acceleration of the optimization process.
of the areas with α = 1 or β = 1 in the design domain, is 2) Inherent structural symmetry: The adoption of average
constrained. After processing in the previous section, the density torque as the objective function may lead to asymmet-
variable of the elements is either 0 or 1, and there are very few rical magnetic pole structures, as demonstrated in the
intermediate values. Therefore, the constraints are written as results presented in [27]. In order to avoid asymmetry
αds βds issues, symmetric constraints are required to be imposed.
Ω
≤ ρ∗PM , Ω
≤ ρ∗Iron (10) In contrast, the fundamental wave, explained through
AΩ AΩ
trigonometric functions, inherently contains symmetrical
where AΩ is the total area of the design domain. ρ∗PM and ρ∗Iron information. Therefore, any departure from structural
represent the permissible percentage of PM and iron in design symmetry results in a reduction of the fundamental wave,
domain, respectively. naturally yielding a symmetric magnetic pole configura-
The permissible material percentage is a crucial parameter tion.
in the topology optimization process, and different material
percentages result in distinct distributions of materials. The
selection of material percentage is often arbitrary [28].
E. Design and Optimization Process
D. Objective of the Optimization The entire design process is illustrated in Fig. 4. In order to
No matter the magnet-motive force or the back electromotive achieve global optimization, a combination of size optimization
force (EMF) is employed to calculate the electromagnetic torque and topology optimization has been employed. The specific steps
of an electric motor, the average torque output of the motor is are as follows.
proportional to the fundamental air-gap flux density [31]. In 1 Overall size optimization: Based on requirements of
other words, the larger the amplitude of the fundamental term of rated operational condition, the size optimization is car-
the air-gap flux density, the larger the average electromagnetic ried out on the radially magnetized surface-mounted
torque of the motor. Therefore, optimizing the amplitude of the PMSM including both rotor and stator, to obtain optimal
fundamental term of the air-gap flux density helps to improve the structure dimensions.
torque output. Since the effect of stator slots on the fundamental 2 Establishment of FEA model: The topology optimization
magnetic flux density can be corrected by using the Carter co- model is constructed based on the rotor dimensions, the
efficient [32], it is ignored here and replaced with a single block design domain is determined, and meshing on the design
of ferromagnetic material as shown in Fig. 2. An arc curve in the domain is performed.
air gap is used to obtain the waveform of the air-gap magnetic 3 Determination of material proportions: The material
flux density. By performing Fourier decomposition of the air-gap proportions of the permanent magnet and the back iron
magnetic flux density, the amplitude of the fundamental term of to the design domain area, i.e., ρ∗PM and ρ∗Iron can be
the air-gap flux density can be obtained as obtained from the  1 step. The various combinations of
  material proportion parameters can be obtained.
Br1 =
1 τ
Br (θ) cos
πθ
dθ (11)
4 Topology optimization of pole: The constraints from the
τ −τ τ 3 step is employed to perform topology optimization in
the design domain from the  2 step. Specifically, the
where θ is rotor position and τ is a half cycle of radial flux density
initialized design variables are filtered and projected.
waveform or a polar distance. Br (θ) is the radial flux density
The FEA computation is conducted to verify the compli-
at different rotor position. Due to the symmetry of the magnetic
ance with constraints, and assess whether the objective
poles, only a half period is calculated. Because τ = π/p, the
function increases. The design variables αc and βc are
objective function is
updated in every iteration, until the maximum number of
π
2p 2p iterations.
Maximize Br1 =
π π
Br (θ) cos(pθ)dθ. (12) 5 Response surface optimization: According to results
− 2p
from the  4 step, the response surfaces can be obtained.
The chosen objective function (12), instead of directly em- The optimal material proportions can be determined,
ploying average torque output as objective function, can offer and then substituted into the  4 step to obtain the final
two advantages as follows. optimal topology.

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HE et al.: MULTIMATERIAL TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION METHOD OF SURFACE-MOUNTED PMSM ROTOR POLES 5

Fig. 5. Test specimen and B-H curve for the rotor iron material:
(a) test specimen; (b) B-H curve and that with different density variables.

TABLE II
PARAMETERS OF THE MOTOR TO BE OPTIMIZE

Fig. 4. Process flowchart of proposed topology optimization.

In this article, the commercial software COMSOL v6.0 is used

Fig. 6. Finite element model: (a) geometric layout and (b) mesh of the
for analysis. Globally convergent method of moving asymptotes model.
(GCMMA) [33] along with adjoint method is used as the op-
timization solver for sensitivity analysis and updating density
variables. manufacturing. To obtain the nonlinear material properties of
20Cr13, a ring-shaped specimen was processed [as shown in
III. EXAMPLE OF OPTIMIZATION Fig. 5(a)], and its B-H curve i.e. magnetization curve was then
obtained with the standard IEC 60404-4 [35], as shown in
A. Problem Description and Establishment of FEA Model Fig. 5(b) where β = 1. Finally, the major parameters of the
An aerospace motor of air compressor pump under rated speed optimized electric motor with original configuration as shown
of 1600 r/min and power of 335 W is design and optimized in Fig. 4 are listed in Table II.
for high torque density by conventional size optimization [34]. Extracting a pole pitch of the motor, a FEA model is estab-
The lamination B35A250 and the rare earth NdFeB N40UH lished as shown in Fig. 6(a). The inner diameter ds of the design
are utilized for the stator cores and the magnets, respectively. domain is arbitrarily set to 48 mm, which is smaller than the
The rotor is made of solid stainless steel 20Cr13 for ease of optimized value di . A curved line inside the air gap represents a

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6 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS

Fig. 8. Objective function changes with each iterations.

Fig. 7. Iteration optimization processing and typical solutions.

magnetic probe used to calculate the fundamental magnetic flux

i.e., topology optimization objectives. As only the magnetic field
entering the stator region can interact to produce electromagnetic
torque, the probe is positioned as close as possible to the stator
bore. The geometry is meshed, with the design domain using
a structured grid, and the stator and air-gap domains using
free triangular meshes as shown in Fig. 6(b). There are 2500
elements within the design domain and 4964 elements in the
entire computational model.
The design domain has an area of 34.558 mm2 . After size
Fig. 9. Optimization results with different permissible portion of mate-
optimization, the cross-sectional areas of the rotor magnetic steel rials.
and back iron are 11.008 mm2 and 7.528 mm2 , respectively,
representing percentages of 0.3185 and 0.2178 relative to the
design domain. The optimization objective of this study is to After 25 iterations, the clear boundary is obtained. As shown
further increase torque density by using fewer materials of PM in Fig. 8, the value of the objective function hardly changes
and back iron. Therefore, the material percentage of PM and thereafter, and the percentage of the two materials meet the
iron should be even smaller, i.e., ρ∗PM ∈ [0, 0.3185] and ρ∗Iron ∈ constraints.
[0, 0.2178]. The entire process was iterated 50 times, taking 269 s, with
an average of 5 s per iteration. Comparing with the work in [27],
B. Topological Optimization of Rotor Magnetic Poles which utilizes the average torque as the objective function, the
computation speed is improved enormously. This because that
The values for the projection parameters in (7) are set to the value of average torque requires the calculation of the torque
kα = kβ = 10 and α0 = β0 = 0.5. The values for the penalty at N positions while the proposed method that employs the
coefficients in (8) are set to m = 6 and n = 2. Under this config- air-gap fundamental flux density as the objective function only
uration, the dependency of magnetic flux density on magnetic requires the calculation of one tooth to evaluate the average
field intensity with different β in the region where α = 0 is torque. Thus, it can increase the computing speed significantly.
shown in Fig. 5(b), and the initial values of density variables
are arbitrarily set to αc = βc = 0.5 for all elements in design
domain, which has no impact on the optimization results. C. Response Surface Optimization
As an example with ρ∗PM = 0.1911 and ρ∗Iron = 0.1089, the To determine the optimal permissible percentages of ma-
optimization process is shown in Fig. 7. In the initial state, α and terials, different percentages were selected for the topology
β are are evenly distributed according to initial value. Then, α optimization of the rotor poles, resulting in 20 configurations as
and β decrease simultaneously to satisfy the constraints. From shown in Fig. 9. It is evident that the permissible percentages of
the 2nd step, α near by the top of the rotor pole begins to grow, materials has a significant impact on the optimization results. By
which results in the PM region. From the 4th step, β on both substituting these 20 configurations for the original rotor pole,
sides of the pole gradually increases, which results in the iron the fundamental radial air-gap flux density, torque output and ef-
region. As the number of iterations increases, the intermediate fective torque density of the motor were calculated, forming the
variables decrease gradually, and the boundaries become clearer. response surfaces as shown in Fig. 10. These response surfaces

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HE et al.: MULTIMATERIAL TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION METHOD OF SURFACE-MOUNTED PMSM ROTOR POLES 7

Fig. 11. Two patterns optimized by conventional and proposed

method.

TABLE III
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MULTIPLE MATERIAL PROPERTIES

Fig. 10. Response surfaces of flux density, torque and torque density.

illustrate the influence of different percentage of materials on the

fundamental radial air-gap flux density, torque output and effec-
tive torque density of the motor. The maximum values of permis-
sible percentages in the response surfaces come from the usage
of PM and back iron obtained through the motor’s global opti-
mization with the original rotor pole configuration, so as the the
performance level highlighted by the dashed line in the figure.
From Fig. 10, it can be observed that the usage of PM and soft Fig. 12. Comparisons of torque density, PM utilization and Moment of
inertia.
magnetic material has a similar impact on the fundamental radial
air-gap flux density and torque output of motor. As the material
usage increases, the improvement in both fundamental flux
density and torque output gradually slows down. Therefore, it is where ρ∗PM = 0.28 and ρ∗Iron = 0.14. To facilitate the manu-
not wise to increase the output torque by simply increasing the facturing, the internal boundary of the back iron is fitted using
material usage. In addition, the maximum value of torque density a circular shape.
is located at ρ∗PM = 0.2465 and ρ∗Iron = 0.1537 in the range
of response surfaces. Hence, utilizing the usage of permanent A. Comparisons of the Two Motors
magnets and back iron obtained through global optimization to
narrow down the range of permissible percentages of materials Table III tabulates the torque output of electric motors with
is reasonable. aforementioned two different pole patterns. The poles optimized
The torque density for the optimal validation is 3.81025 by multimaterial topology method costs less PM material by
N · m/kg, with an error of -0.3% compared with the predicted 9.45% than those optimized by conventional size design method,
value of 3.8219 N · m/kg, indicating that the obtained response and back iron by 33.53%. Hence, the weight of rotor decreases
surface has high prediction accuracy. by 19.42%. However the average torque output is increased by
1.23%, ultimately resulting in the increase of torque density
by 6.55%. As shown in Fig. 12, the torque density of the
optimized design is larger than that of the conventional one. The
IV. COMPARISON WITH ORIGINAL CONFIGURATION
improvement of the PM utilization ratio makes the motor more
The two optimized magnet pole patterns are compared as cost-efficiency, and the decrease of the moment of inertia can
shown in Fig. 11. The left one is optimized by conventional improve the dynamic characteristics of the motor. In addition, the
parameter optimization method with radial magnetized poles. cogging torque is reduced, and the efficiency is improved, taking
Its dimensions are given in Table II. The right one is recon- into account the stator iron loss, stator copper loss, magnetic steel
structed based on the aforementioned topology optimization eddy loss, and rotor back iron eddy loss.

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8 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS

Fig. 15. Rotor with optimized poles and rotor core.

Fig. 13. Radial flux density waveforms in air gap. (a) Shape of the
waveforms. (b) FFT of the waveforms.

Fig. 16. Research prototype and major components of the motor.

saturated and other portions have little magnetic flux passing

through. The material utilization rate is higher than that of the
conventional one, which explains why the torque is increased
while the rotor mass is decreased.

V. RESEARCH PROTOTYPE AND EXPERIMENTS

A. Development of Research Prototype
Fig. 14. Electromagnetic field of motors with different pole patterns.
One research prototype of the electric machine with the opti-
mized configuration is developed as shown in Fig. 15. The PM
pole and the outer profile of the rotor core are manufactured by
For single or small batch production, the wire electrical dis- wire electrical discharge machining, and the surface of the PM
charge machining is usually utilized for fabrication. The usage is nickel plated. The PM poles are glued to the rotor core, and
of PM material and the corresponding cost can be reduced by the strength and stiffness of the rotor are verified to be more
using the proposed optimization method, and the complicated than enough by FEA. As shown in Fig. 16, the Y connection
magnet shape may increase the cost a bit. For mass production, is adopted and the neutral point is led out to facilitate the
the mould can be employed for the manufacturing to reduce the measurement of back EMF. Two PT-1000 temperature sensors
total cost. are inserted between the windings to monitor the winding tem-
perature. In order to ensure the coaxiality between the stator
B. Magnetic Field and Torque Output and the rotor, the housing rabbet is turning processed based on
the stator bore after installed into by the stator. Besides, the
The waveforms of the air-gap magnetic flux density for the
axial clearance of the bearings is adjusted to ensure smooth
two kinds of pole patterns are shown in Fig. 13(a). The magnetic
and stable rotation of the rotor. To avoid axial misalignment
flux density waveforms are similar, but the optimized one in this
of the rotor, the axial length of the rotor has been extended by
study has slightly higher peaks than the conventional one. The
1 mm. The housing and the end cap are made of aluminum alloy
fast Fourier transform (FFT) is performed on the two waveforms,
7075. Although the shaft and the rotor use the same magnetic
and the results are shown in Fig. 13(b). It can be observed that the
material, nonmagnetic aluminum alloy is used to connect them,
fundamental component, or the 1st harmonic of the optimized
to achieve magnetic circuit isolation and avoid the influence
pole is larger than that of the conventional one, while the 3rd,
of the shaft on the rotor magnetic circuit. This stand structure
the 5th and the 7th harmonics are smaller. The harmonics
ensures consistency between simulation and experiment.
distribution cannot only achieve high torque density but also
reduce torque ripple and iron loss [36], [37], [38].
B. Experiments on Torque Output
Fig. 14 shows the magnetic field simulation of the two motors.
It can be seen that the magnetic flux density in the back iron is Experimental test rig for the torque output measurement is
evenly distributed, while the magnetic flux density distribution shown in Fig. 17. The research prototype is fixed on the three
for the conventional design is uneven, i.e., some portions are jaw chuck of the indexing plate so that the stator can rotate

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HE et al.: MULTIMATERIAL TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION METHOD OF SURFACE-MOUNTED PMSM ROTOR POLES 9

Fig. 19. Experimental test rig for the EMF measurement.

Fig. 17. Experimental test rig for the torque output measurement.

Fig. 20. Back EMF comparison between experiment and simulation.

As shown in Fig. 18, the torque output obtained through

experiments and the simulation results are compared. The aver-
age torque output of the experimental and simulation results is
Fig. 18. Torque comparison between experimental and simulation. consistent. Fig. 18 also presents the torque within one electrical
cycle when Iq = 10 A. The torque ripple of experimental result
is slightly larger than that of simulation, which may be caused
by the manufacturing and assembly error [39] of the research
to any specific angle. The output shaft is fixed on the rotor
prototype.
through a torque transducer (ATI F/T Mini45), so that the torque
output of the electric motor can be measured and collected
by the computer through data acquisition (DAQ) equipment C. Experiments on Back EMF
(NI-DAO-USB 6002). A resolver is installed on the output shaft The experiments on the back EMF of the research prototype is
to read the relative position between the stator and the rotor so as also conducted as shown in Fig. 19. The prototype is dragged by
to realize the current loop control with Id = 0 by the servo drive. another motor, which is controlled by a servo drive. The back
The electromagnetic torque is generated when Iq or peak current EMF waveform of the motor is recorded by an oscilloscope
is assigned with any value above 0. The electromagnetic torque (RIGOL DH04204) when the electric motor is rotated at a
at specific rotation angle is also obtained by rotating the stator to specific speed. Any phase back EMF can be directly collected,
corresponding angle. In addition, the temperature sensors inside since the neutral point is led out.
the winding are connected to a monitor to collect the temperature The comparison of experimental result and simulation is
of the windings. shown in Fig. 20. When the shaft speed is 1600 r/min, the back

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10 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS

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Xinghua He received the B.S. and M.S. de- I-Ming Chen (Fellow, IEEE) received the B.S.
grees in engineering from Liaoning Technical degree in mechanical engineering from National
University, Fuxin, China, in 2014 and 2017, re- Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1986, and
spectively. He is currently working toward the the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical en-
Ph.D. degree in mechatronics from Beihang gineering from the California Institute of Tech-
University, Beijing, China. nology, Pasadena, CA, USA, in 1989 and 1994,
His research interests include electromag- respectively.
netic actuators and permanent magnet ma- He is currently working as a Professor with
chines. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Dr. Chen is the Editor-in-chief of IEEE/ASME
TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS from 2020
to 2022.

Liang Yan (Senior Member, IEEE) received the

B.S. degree from the North China Institute of
Technology, Taiyuan, China, the M.S. degree
from the Beijing Institute of Technology, Bei-
jing, China, and the Ph.D. degree in mechatron-
ics from Nanyang Technology University, Singa-
pore. Haifeng Hu received the master’s degree in
He is currently working as a Professor systems engineering from the School of Au-
with Beihang University, Beijing. His main re- tomation, Northwestern Polytechnical Univer-
search interests include robotics, actuators, and sity, Xi’an, China.
mechatronic systems. He is currently a Researcher with Beijing
Aerospace Automatic Control Institute, Beijing,
China, and the National Key Laboratory of
Aerospace Intelligent Control, Beijing. His re-
Pengjie Xiang received the B.S. degree in en-
search interests include navigation, guidance
gineering from the Lanzhou University of Tech-
and control, intelligent autonomous control, and
nology, Lanzhou, China, in 2020. He is currently
actuators.
working toward the Ph.D. degree in mechatron-
ics from Beihang University, Beijing, China.
His research interests include the design and
control of permanent-magnet machines.

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