My poster for the 24th Symposium on Electromagnetic Phenomena in Nonlinear Circuits (EPNC). Briefly introduces the electrical machine design software I developed as a part of an EU-funded collaboration project. Abstract - Reluctance networks are an efficient method for analysing electrical machines. Any network can be robustly solved with the loop method, provided that the necessary loop equations can be formed. This pa- per discusses the practicalities of using reluctance net- works and the loop method for analysis of general elec- tromechanical devices. A method is also proposed for efficient treatment of changes in the network topology due to motion. Finally, analysis results of an axial flux machine are presented and compared to finite element solution.

1. Background
Aalto University
Antti Lehikoinen, Sahas Bikram Shah, Vicente Climente-Alarcón and Antero Arkkio
antti.lehikoinen@aalto.fi
TIME-STEPPING 3D-RELUCTANCE NETWORK ANALYSIS OF AN AXIAL FLUX
PERMANENT MAGNET MACHINE
• A novel axial-flux permanent magnet machine developed in a
European collaboration project.
• Doubly salient topology.
• 1 stator, 2 rotors.
• Aalto University was responsible for efficient numerical analysis and
optimization.
Approach
Design software was developed, utilizing 3D reluctance networks.
Software Features
Comparison with 3D FEM
• Fundamental loop method.
• 𝜳 = 𝑳 𝜳 virtual loop fluxes.
• ℱ = ℜΨ magnetic Ohm’s law.
• 𝑳T 𝓕 = 𝓕source Ampere’s law.
• Newton’s method for nonlinearity.
Simulation results compared with
Comsol Multiphysics.
• Good agreement.
• 200x speed-up
• Separation of static and time-variant components of the
network.
• Flux-tube model of the air-gap
• Full coupling with circuit equations.
• Fully parametric machine model.
• Minimal user input.
• Automatic non-linear time-stepping solver.
• Machine model as input.
Left: Flux linkages from reluctance network and FEM models. Right: Induced back-emfs.