Innovative magnetic materials for the new applications in electrical machines

Permanent magnets play a key role as a component in a wide range of devices utilised by many industries; they are widely used in several electromechanical applications to convert energy, including actuators, motors and sensors, home appliances, office automation equipment, speakers, aerospace, wind generators and more. Traditionally the adopted PMs were obtained from Rare Earth components, such as NdFeB, with high magnetic performance, but expensive. The research of alternative permanent magnets, in many cases has brought to choose the ferrites, mainly due to their low cost, but sometimes with significant design modifications of the final circuit, and possible increment of the weight. Permanent magnets can roughly be divided into two categories: sintered (metallic) and bonded, these last representing a valid alternative to the first. Bonded magnets consist of two components: a hard magnetic powder and a non-magnetic binder; the powder may be hard ferrite, NdFeB, SmCo, and is mixed with binders for compression or injection moulding. The benefits lie in the adoption of polymeric binders to prepare the magnetic mixture: the resulting magnetic characteristic can be then “tuned” by adopting different percentages of the plastic binder. Moreover, the realisation process is simpler and cheaper than that of sintered materials, and no special protective treatment is needed. The majority of the magnetic circuits are made with soft magnetic materials. Commonly laminated steels are adopted but recently the use of Soft Magnetic Composite (SMC) materials has increased representing a new solution to design the electrical machines with respect to traditional electrical steels. SMC materials are realized with pure Iron grains coated and insulated by means of a layer that should be organic or inorganic. With respect to traditional laminated steel, these materials present different advantages: the capability to lead the magnetic flux in all directions, the volume reduction, the possibility to realize components with new complex shapes and geometries, and the reduction of iron losses, mainly the eddy currents, at medium and high frequency. On the other hand, the mechanical performances, in terms of strength, are in general weak. Furthermore, a new material typology is introduced: the Hybrid Magnetic Composites (HMC), which are obtained with a combination of soft and hard magnetic materials mixed with a binder. The basic idea is that such materials should reflect the performance of AlNiCo magnets, low coercivity and adequate remanence, typically used in sensors applications. Prototypes of traditional and unconventional rotating machines, such as assisted reluctance motors, brushless DC motors, axial flux machines and electromechanical frequency converters, have been studied in own laboratories and tested to evaluate the results coming from the adoption of the proposed materials in substitution of the commonly adopted (and expensive) Rare Earth sintered magnets. Different type of electrical machines can adopt innovative magnetic materials with the aim to improve their performance. Induction motors are very useful and robust machines; on the other hand, such type of machines does not have a high dynamic behaviour. The DC motors can be easily controlled, but the presence of the brushes causes limitations on the efficiency, thermal restrictions and reduced life. The axial flux motors (AFM) have high efficiencies but the construction of the machines is very complex. The synchronous reluctance machines (SRM) have a lower cost compared to brushless ones. In general, the reluctance electrical machines don’t use permanent magnets. In this way, they have a reduction in the costs and allow a high overload capability. On the other hand, the lower power factor and power density, compared to PM synchronous motor (PMSM), are the main disadvantages. The filling of flux barriers with the permanent magnets allows the overcoming of these drawbacks. However, the regular ferrite and NdFeB sintered magnets cannot fill the flux barriers with complex geometries. For this reason, the use of bonded magnets can be a solution for a better utilization and design of flux barriers. Therefore different prototypes have been prepared and analyzed in our laboratories using SMC materials. Several experiments have been performed using dedicated test benches, where magnetic, energetic and mechanical aspects have been considered. On the other hand, with regard to HMCs, various magnets have been made in our laboratories, and different properties have been investigated: the effect of Iron content in the material and, also the binder content effect has been analysed.