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High-performance motor stator based on additive manufacturing technology

Date:2023-08-02   Author:XINDA MOTOR
The motor is an indispensable and important component in modern industry, and the performance of the motor often depends on the quality of the stator. The traditional motor stator is usually made of silicon steel sheet material. Additive manufacturing technology is an emerging manufacturing technology that can produce more complex structures and greatly shorten the product development cycle. Fe-3wt.%Si ferrite material has excellent magnetic and mechanical properties, which can greatly improve the performance of the motor, and at the same time, the resistivity is lower than that of traditional silicon steel sheets, and the electrical properties are better. Therefore, it is of great significance and application value to use additive manufacturing technology and Fe-3wt.%Si ferrite material to manufacture motor stators.

Recently, Tej N. Lamichhane and other researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States have conducted research on additive manufacturing technology and Fe-3wt.%Si ferrite materials to manufacture motor stators. This technology can not only realize complex-shaped stator manufacturing, With higher flexibility and customizability. At the same time, it can greatly shorten the product development cycle and improve production efficiency. This study was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and is a very promising technical study.

The stator is printed using selective laser melting, then machined into thin layers and finally laminated into the stator core. The research used Selective Laser Melting (SLM) technology to print out Fe-3wt.%Si ferrite material. SLM technology is an additive manufacturing technology based on powder materials. The powder materials are melted and stacked layer by layer by laser beams, and finally the required three-dimensional structure is formed. Compared with traditional manufacturing methods, SLM technology has higher flexibility and customizability, and can manufacture more complex structures. Fe-3wt.%Si ferrite material is a material with excellent magnetic and mechanical properties, which can greatly improve the performance of the motor. At the same time, the resistivity of this material is lower than that of traditional silicon steel sheets, and its electrical properties are better. The application of this material can bring higher performance and better efficiency to the electric motor manufacturing industry.


 
Figure 1 Photo of the first layer printed in the SLM process (left); completed seven Fe-3wt.%Si stator samples (right)



 
Fig. 2 Motor assembly: (a) SLM printed stator and cylinder; (b) 1.4mm thick stator sheet; (c) assembled stator winding; (d) rotor with BAAM printed NdFeB-PPS magnet; (e) assembled rotor; (f) housing rotor; (g, h) complete set of motors.

The study also tested the performance of the printed material and compared it with conventional silicon steel sheets. The results show that the magnetic permeability of the stator is more than 20% higher than that of traditional silicon steel sheets, and the magnetic saturation induction is also more than 10% higher than traditional silicon steel sheets. At the same time, the strength and hardness of the stator are much higher than traditional silicon steel sheets, the resistivity is also lower than traditional silicon steel sheets, and the electrical performance is better. This performance boost can lead to higher efficiency and better performance in motor manufacturing.


Table 1 Comparison of magnetoelectric properties between conventionally processed electrical steel and SLM AM Fe-3wt.%Si laminates