Rotary Transformer With Ferrite Core For Brushless Excitation of Synchronous Machines
Rotary Transformer With Ferrite Core For Brushless Excitation of Synchronous Machines
Rotary Transformer With Ferrite Core For Brushless Excitation of Synchronous Machines
l-)))
rotating
stationary
Rac1 Lσ1 Lσ2
Rac2
i1 i2 Lf
iμ
UDC u1
Lh
Rf
which allows to operate the transformer at a higher frequency. not grow in size for the integration of the rotary transformer.
Accordingly, the size of the transformer can be reduced.
To avoid a high tensile stress, the rotary transformer is de-
signed with an external rotor. An internal rotor would require
an additional bandage. This would increase the effective air
gap length resulting in a reduced main inductance Lh and a
higher magnetizing current Iμ . Fig. 2 presents a cross section
of the rotary transformer, indicating the position of the stator,
the rotor and the windings. Two L-shaped ferrite cores form
the magnetic circuit. The main flux path is illustrated by the
main flux Φh . The flux crosses the air gap in radial direction.
The L-shaped cores are comparatively easy to manufacture
and favor a coaxial configuration of the stator and rotor
coil resulting in a better coupling of the coils [4],[5]. The
coils are assembled from flat copper band as shown in Fig
4. Copper band windings offer a high filling factor and a
constant voltage stress between each turn [6].
Fig. 5: Hollow shaft integration
B. Electrical constraints
The purpose of a rotary transformer is to transfer electrical
power to excite the motor. The maximum output power
Pout,max is the key constraint. In addition to that, the provided
DC link voltage UDC , as well as the convention to operate
the transformer in unsaturated state, and the rotor winding
parameters of the SPSYM (Rf , Lf ) determine the electrical
design of the transformer. In order to be able to predict
Fig. 4: Exploded view of the prototype the losses, the current waveforms need to be described in
analytical expressions. Hence, the converter topology has to
The compact design of the rotary transformer makes it be predefined [8].
possible to consider new integration methods into the drive In this study, a full bridge forward converter topology
system. In high torque applications (e.g. wheel hub drives (Fig. 3) is used. The resistors Rac1 and Rac2 include the
[7]), a comparably high shaft diameter is needed. In this influence of skin and proximity effect. The inductance of
case, the contactless transmission systems could be integrated the motor’s field winding Lf acts as a smoothing reactor.
into the large hollow shaft (shown in Fig. 5). The blue part
represents the non rotating motor housing. Correspondingly,
the rotary transformer is integrated into the green hallow C. Calculation tool
shaft. The main advantage of this integration method is the The calculation process of the rotary transformer starts
utilization of unused installation space. Moreover, the rectify- with the determination of all geometric dimensions of the
ing power electronic components can be arranged inside the electromagnetic circuit. Based on the geometry, the mutual
hollow shaft too. Consequently, the housing of the motor does inductance Lh and the leakage inductances, Lσ1 , Lσ2 can
([10], [6], [2]), the losses are minimal for a duty cycle of
0.5. For that reason, a duty cycle close to 0.5 is desired. The
operating point can be varied by a variable DC link voltage
RM,λ1 UDC . Of course, it is possible to adjust the output power with
a variable duty cycle. However, a variable voltage is easier
to implement to execute measurements on the prototype.
N2 i1
r N1 Iout + Δi
z t
Fig. 6: Proposed equivalent magnetic circuit N
− N2 Iout − Δi
1
i2
Iout
be calculated. The resulting current waveforms are analyzed
t
using Fourier series to determine the losses.
In order to estimate the inductances, the magnetic equiv- −Iout
alent circuit and its magnetic resistances RM have to be
calculated and analyzed [9]. Knowing the cross section area Δi iμ
A, the length l and the relative permeability μr of each part t
of the circuit allows to calculate the related resistance to
−Δi
l 0 αT0 T0 (1 + α)T0 2T0
RM = . (1)
μ 0 · μr · A Fig. 7: Ideal current waveforms (α = 0.5)
The magnetic resistances of the air gap (RM,λ1 ,RM,λ2 ) Taking advantage of this fact, only the Fourier coefficients
determine the inductance of the transformer. The magnetic of the currents iμ and i2 have to be calculated. The amplitude
field widens inside the air gap, resulting in a reduced resis- of the n-th harmonic for a duty cycle of 0.5 can be derived
tance. To take this fringing flux into account, the resistance of to
the air gap is calculated using the Schwarz-Christoffel trans-
formations [10]. The mutual inductance can be calculated by 4 · Δi
cμ,n = · (1 − cos(nπ)) (6)
summing up the magnetic resistance along the main flux path (nπ)2
RM,tot,h to
for the magnetizing current,
N1 · N2
Lh = . (2) 2 · Iout
RM,tot,h c2,n = · (1 − cos(nπ)) (7)
(nπ)
The number of turns of the stator coil N1 and of the
rotor coil N2 can be used to optimize the design. The stator for the rotor current and
inductance L1 is calculated with the total resistance of the 2
magnetic circuit RM,tot which includes the leakage resistance N2
c1,n = c2,n + c2μ,n (8)
RM,σ : N1
This frequency depends on the waveform of the magnetizing and rotor current
current and is given by
i2,load,n = −c2,n (14)
8
fsin,eq = (10) in load simulations for the n-th harmonic are defined in
π 2 · T0 this way. Load and no load simulations have to be done for
in this specific case. The volume of the ferrite Vfe is several harmonics. Due to the opposing current directions, the
calculated with the geometric dimensions of the magnetic magnetic fields of the stator and the rotor compensate each
circuit. The loss density of ferrite depends on the temperature. other in a load simulation. Consequently, there are mainly
This is considered by the factor ktemp which is based on leakage fields in a load simulation. In order to include skin
the temperature loss curves provided by the manufacturer. and proximity effects, each turn of the stator and the rotor
Moreover, the magnetic circuit is divided into parts with coil have to be modeled individually. Finally, the total copper
homogenous flux density. The magnetic peak flux density B̂ losses
for each part of the magnetic circuit needs to be calculated.
First, the mutual flux is determined to Pv,cu = Pcu,load,n + Pcu,μ,n (15)
n
Φ̂h = Lh · Δi . (11) are determined by summing up the losses for each har-
monic caused by the magnetizing current Pcu,μ,n and the load
Thus, the magnetic flux density, knowing the cross section currents Pcu,load,n .
A of each part of the magnetic circuit, can be estimated to
Φ̂
B̂ = . (12) 80
N1 · A Pv,tot
For accurate results, leakage fluxes and the fringing air 60 Pv,fe
Pv /W
gap flux are considered as well. Pv,cu
40
20
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Number of stator turns N1
Fig. 9: Losses at constant output power for different numbers
of turns
100 TABLE I: Prototype dimensions
Parameter Value
95 Rotor outer diameter da2 60 mm
Stator outer diameter da1 54 mm
0.5 mm
ϑ /◦ C
85
transformer is operated without rotation. An ohmic-inductive
load (Lf = 12.3 mH, Rf = 10 Ω) is used for the load
80 measurements.
ϑSW ϑRW ϑSY ϑRY
Fig. 10: Stationary temperatures for peak load
electronics) remains above 90%. R EFERENCES
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On the one hand, the influence of the core openings is in transformers for arbitrary magnetizing currents a comparison of
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Bernd Ponick was born in Großburgwedel, Germany, in May 1964. He
received his Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical power engineering from the
University of Hannover in 1990 and his Dr.-Ing. degree for a thesis on
electrical machines in 1994. After 9 years with the Large Drives Division
of Siemens as design engineer for large variable speed motors, head of
electrical design and Technical Director of Siemens Dynamowerk Berlin,
he is since 2003 full professor for electrical machines and drive systems at
Leibniz Universität Hannover. His main research activities are calculation
and simulation methods for electrical machines, prediction of and measures
against important parasitic effects such as magnetic noise, additional losses
or bearing currents, and new applications for electric machines, e.g. for
electric and hybrid vehicles.