Design and Demonstration of a Wound Field Synchronous Machine for Electric Vehicle Traction With Brushless Capacitive Field Excitation

This paper describes the modeling, optimization, mechanical design, and experimental characterization of a high power density wound field synchronous machine (WFSM) for electric vehicle traction applications. The WFSM is designed for brushless rotor field excitation using an axial flux hydrodynamic capacitive power coupler (CPC). The flexible design environment, which was used for large-scale multiobjective optimization of the WFSM, is described. A prototype WFSM, spray cooled with automatic transmission fluid, with an 80-kW output at a base speed of 4000 r/min has been tested. The prototyped WFSM achieves volumetric torque and power densities of 17.22 N.m/L and 7.19 kW/L referred to the envelope cylindrical volume of the active materials plus spray cooling rings. The specific torque and power densities are 4.69 N.m/kg and 1.95 kW/kg referred to the mass of the active materials and the shaft. The prototyped CPC provided up to 1-kW excitation power with a mass 600 g and volume of 0.271 L.