In case of small motors, coil bundle occupies a large portion of stator in view of mass and volume as well as dynamics. It is observed through modal test on the stator of an IPM BLDC (interior permanent magnet brushless direct current) motor that coil bundle wound on the stator core causes the first and second natural frequencies to decrease by about 20-30% compared with those of bare stator. Especially the third natural frequency is newly observed below 3 kHz, which is not observed on the bare stator. It is found that at the third mode the end-coil and the core vibrate out of phase in radial direction.
In this thesis, the stator is dynamically modeled in terms of the core and the coil bundle consisting of the end-coil and the slot coil based on the above observations for the prediction of dynamic properties. The core can easily be modeled using finite element method with its actual material properties and geometric shape. The concept of equivalent bending stiffness is used for modeling of the end-coil so that predictions may match with the measured natural frequencies for the end-coil cut out of the stator. Although the same concept can be applied to the slot coil, separation of the slot coil from the stator is impractical. Therefore, equivalent bending stiffness of the slot coil is determined through iterative comparisons with the measurements of natural frequencies of the stator with the slot coil in it.
The proposed procedure for modeling coil bundle can be used in predicting the dynamic properties of the stator consisting of a modified core and the unchanged coil bundle.
