Altair Flux enables development of hub motor for EVs

It is no secret that e-vehicles and hybrid vehicles are the future and a lot of research is being carried out at a scorching pace in this segment. As motor is the most important component of these vehicles, the design, simulation, and soft testing of motors plays a very important role in optimising the performance of these vehicles. Altair Flux, a low frequency electromagnetic simulation software used for motor simulation, played a crucial role in helping researchers design, test, and re-iterate the procedure to produce optimal designs for motors that ultimately optimise the performance of these vehicles. Altair Flux also gives researchers rare insights into the working and performance of motors and offers a simple user-friendly platform to seamlessly simulate and soft test motors to obtain credible results in the shortest possible time.

Challenge
The objective of the project was to design and develop a Hub motor that would optimise the performance of e-vehicles. Researchers at Bengaluru-based R.V. College of Engineering (RVCE) faced formidable challenges during this NPD initiative. The researchers wanted to achieve the optimised design of the Hub motor in the least possible amount of time and knew that multiple design iterations would be required. Traditional testing of the motor was not possible because of challenges such as cost constraints, practical limits in modification, availability of testing equipment and power supplies, and time limitations. Hence, the Researchers wanted a motor simulation software that would speed up their design optimisation process through simulation testing and also allow them better understanding of the motor’s performance. The team chose Altair Flux motor for the project as it offered the simplest user friendly platform to simulate and soft test the motor and obtain quick test results.

Solution
The features of Altair Flux motor software enabled the researchers to carry out all necessary actions to reach the desired results in the least possible time. The simple and user-friendly platform that Altair Flux motor offered enhanced and speeded the team’s learning and understanding of the Hub motor, which resulted in quick optimisation of the motor design. Available literature had demonstrated that there was a gap in systematic analysis and an absence of optimal designs of the Hub motor and hence they used Flux motor to initially simulate the motor and find out it’s working. Simulation using Flux motor proved to be very simple compared to many other tools where a lot of initialisations had to be done. The simple and user friendly environment of Flux motor made it easier for them to focus on the test results, rather than on executing the process of simulation. Flux motor was quick, which helped them to speed up the research and design process exponentially. Through its wide range of preloaded templates of slot and pole designs, Flux also helped the team in quickly choosing the right slot and pole shape, which otherwise is a time consuming process. These features of Flux greatly simplified the design process for the team.

Results
With Altair Flux motor, the researchers at RVCE got the desired results in the Hub motor project. Flux enabled them to optimise the design to reduce the cogging torque, which otherwise reduces the efficiency of the motor to a great extent. With Flux, the researchers could process the test results quickly and also reduced the post-processing time. The neat and organised test results presented by Flux also saved a lot of time and efforts for the team.

Thus, with Altair Flux motor on their side, the RVCE team successfully achieved the optimised design of the Hub motor in the least amount of time. The team benefitted from rich features of the software such as simulation testing, ease of use, neat, organised, and detailed test reports along with its fast processing speed. All this saved a lot of time and effort for the team and enabled them to quickly reach to conclusions to optimise the motor design.

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