A Novel Analytical Formulation of the Magnetic Field Generated by Halbach Permanent Magnet Arrays

This paper presents an analytical study of the air-gap magnetic field of a surface permanent magnet (SPM) linear, slot-less machine with a Halbach PM configuration, under the no-load condition. While other analytical formulations of the magnetic field generated by PMs are available, they exhibit some drawbacks, such as only providing a Fourier series, or being suitable to determine magnetic field average values, but not local magnetic field distributions. On the contrary, the proposed approach allows the determination of a unique, closed-form formulation for the slot-less machine air-gap field. This is obtained starting from the complex expression of the magnetic field of a conductor, inside the air gap, between two parallel smooth iron surfaces, obtained by means of the method of images. The magnetic field due to an infinitesimal conductor belonging to a current sheet is then integrated along a segment, providing the expression of the magnetic field due to the corresponding linear current density distribution, for current sheets perpendicular or parallel to the iron surfaces. Any Halbach PM segment disposition can, hence, be obtained via a suitable combination of field distributions generated by couples of current sheets with perpendicular and parallel orientation. Lastly, the no-load magnetic field expression with a Halbach array of PMs is retrieved. The proposed analytical model provides an accurate representation of the magnetic field distribution produced by any Halbach array, with an arbitrary number of segments and orientations. Additionally, the results obtained from the proposed analytical expressions are compared with FEM simulations realized by commercial software, and show an excellent agreement.