Design and performance of electric machines with additily manufactured motor components

Additive manufacturing offers innovative approaches for the development and production of electrical machines. The layer-by-layer construction allows components to have complex geometries, and the electromagnetic and mechanical properties can be modified by adjusting the material composition and process parameters. However, current challenges include increased core losses due to eddy currents in additively manufactured components and a manufacturing process that is still inferior to conventional methods in terms of precision and speed. The aim of current research is to compensate for disadvantages such as increased core losses while at the same time exploiting the potential. Furthermore, specific applications are being researched that make targeted use of additive manufacturing to optimize electric drives. These objectives are being implemented on the basis of the design of an additively manufactured synchronous reluctance rotor. The focus is on efficiency, average torque, power factor, and torque pulsations under various load conditions. Possible design criteria are discussed and evaluated using simulations. Afterwards, the operating behavior of an additively manufactured rotor prototype is compared with that of a conventional rotor. Finally, an overview of further research results and open research topics in the field of additive manufacturing of motor components is provided.