Accurate and Easy-to-Obtain Iron Loss Model for Electric Machine Design

Iron loss modeling is crucial for electric machine design. However, current models feature severe drawbacks. They are 1) very complex, and thus, can hardly be applied, 2) require very high effort for measuring and computation, and/or 3) are not very accurate. In this paper, a new modeling technique is introduced for calculating the instantaneous power loss in ferromagnetic materials without taking the magnetization history into account. A standard measurement setup and specimen shape is used. The considered approach comprises the required measurements, the nonlinear loss modeling by itself, and an extensive verification for different flux density waveforms and frequencies. In addition, a detailed qualitative comparison to well-known iron loss models is given. The presented technique gives very accurate results, while obtaining the model is comparably easy. Moreover, as the calculation of the instantaneous losses is not based on the previous magnetization state of the material, a modeling error for a particular instant of time has no impact on the subsequently calculated characteristics. In the future, this model should ensure a more accurate iron loss calculation for electric machine designs.