Topology optimization for the design of resource efficient electrical machines

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Ingo Hahn
• Subject Area: Electrical Energy Systems, Power Management, Power Electronics, Electrical Machines and Drives
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 542495945

In view of increasingly scarce material resources worldwide, especially, rare earth materials, which are used as materials for the permanent magnets in electrical machines, the careful and efficient use of these materials is of particular importance. This aspect should become even more important in the future design and optimization of electrical machines. However, in the past and also in the current practice of optimizing electrical machines, this aspect tends to be neglected. At the moment, the focus is mostly on achieving given and desired operating characteristics in a limited volume for the electrical machine and on the reduction of the manufacturing costs without taking the resource efficiency into account. The main goal of the proposed research project is to develop a methodology for the design of resource-efficient electrical machines based on the discrete topology optimization method and to critically evaluate the following working hypotheses. 1) Topology optimization methods enable more resource-efficient machine designs in comparison to conventional methods with fixed machine topologies considering the same requirements for the operating characteristics. 2) Discrete topology optimization methods lead directly to better adapted machine designs than other topology optimization methods. 3) The resulting optimal material distributions gained by discrete topology optimization are feasible, provided that a criterion for evaluating the material connectivity is taken into account as a further optimization goal. 4) Deterministic methods of discrete topology optimization can achieve exactly repeatable results which are comparable to to those results gained by evolutionary or stochastic methods. The research work is to be carried out with the focus on reducing the usage of materials for the active components and parts in electrical machines, even though resource efficiency should actually be considered across the entire product life cycle, i.e. from the development process to the extraction and processing of raw materials, the manufacturing process, operation and recycling of the electrical machine.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants