Investigation on the Torque Ripple Reduction Method of a Hybrid Electric Vehicle Motor

Owing to the development of electric vehicles (EVs), research and development are underway to minimize torque ripple in relation to vibration and noise in EV motors. Although there are various ways to reduce torque ripple, this study analyzes the torque ripple, cogging torque, total harmonic distortion (THD), and magnetic flux density distribution for the three rotor shapes of interior permanent magnet synchronous motors, which are widely employed in EVs. To reduce the torque ripple while retaining the required average torque, the barrier shape is optimized, and wedge skew is applied. First, regarding the rotor barrier shape, torque ripple is primarily reduced by designing the rotor barrier shape with the response surface method, which is an experimental design method. Additionally, the wedge skew shape considering the bidirectional rotation and fabrication was applied to the stator shoe as a step and analyzed using three-dimensional finite element analysis. When designing the wedge skew, the layer subdivision according to the axial length, wedge skew diameter, and wedge skew position was analyzed and improved. The torque ripple reduction method in this paper can be applied not only to motors for EVs or Hybrid EVs (HEVs) but also all types of permanent magnet synchronous motors.