Analysis of exterior-rotor BLDC motor considering the eddy current effect in the rotor steel shell

This paper describes the effect of eddy currents generated in the rotor steel shell of an exterior-rotor type permanent magnet brushless DC motor of which the rotor is revolving at a high speed. A two dimensional time-stepped finite element method is used to analyze the electromagnetic field and compute motor performance. The conductivity of the rotor steel shell is modified to consider the transverse edge effect. As a result, the effect of eddy currents is shown by comparing the analysis results between when the proposed method is used and when the method it is not.