Investigation and Analysis of Novel Skewing in a 140 kW Traction Motor of Railway Cars That Accommodate Limited Inverter Switching Frequency and Totally Enclosed Cooling System

Abstract

This study facilitated the improvement of no-load back electromotive force (back-EMF) wave form, total harmonic distortion (THD) of back-EMF, and torque ripple using a novel skew angle formula, considering the specific order of a no-load THD. In real usage environments, it is taken into consideration for the fully enclosed cooling system and limited inverter switching frequency of urban railway car traction motors. Since the most railway car traction motors use high-withstand voltage rectangular wires in slot-open structure, a no-load back EMF waveform includes large space slot harmonics, which should be smaller as possible. For 6-step control, the no-load back EMF waveform is important because switching for motor control is performed once after the rotor position is determined. To improve the no-load back EMF waveform and THD, two-dimensional and three-dimensional finite element analysis (FEA) were performed using a novel skew angle formula considering specific harmonic order reduction, while the fundamental amplitude was minimally reduced. A prototype with the novel skew was fabricated and verified. In addition, it was designed by calculating a low current density for a fully enclosed cooling system. A temperature saturation experiment was also performed, and successfully verified. Therefore, we suggest that the no-load back EMF characteristics and torque ripple are improved by applying the novel skew angle instead of a traditional skew angle.