A Study on the Improvement of Power Density of Axial Flux Motors for Collaborative Robot Joints through Same-Direction Skew

Abstract

Axial flux motors have a large output density with a large outer diameter of the motor and a short axial length. Since it is advantageous in short axial length, the axial thickness of motor components becomes a very important parameter when designing axial flux motors. Among the components, the back yoke exists to serve as a path for magnetic flux and must have a certain thickness to prevent magnetic saturation. However, as the thickness of the back yoke increases within the axial size limit of the motor, the output of the motor may decrease. In this paper, same-direction skew that increases the cross-sectional area of the magnetic flux path without increasing the thickness of the back yoke is presented. Same-direction skew is a way to increase the cross-sectional area of the back yoke by skewing the rotor and stator in the same direction. The back yoke thickness that can be reduced by same-direction skew was calculated. Performance with same-direction skew designed using the equations was analyzed and compared, and the effectiveness of each type of rotor was verified. The validity of the proposed model was examined using the finite element analysis method.