Evaluation and Optimization of Axial Air Gap Propulsion Motors for Naval Vessels

摘要

A unique method is used to optimize a design to multi-objective criteria. Whilethe method is potentially applicable to any optimization where the cost function is not well defined, the products considered here are synchronous axial gap electric motors (both wound rotor and permanent magnet) and the application for which the motors are optimized is warship propulsion. All motors are rated at 40,000 hp, or approximately 25 megawatts. A preliminary design of an axial gap motor in this power range was completed as part of doctoral research by T. J. McCoy. All wound rotor designs in this study are based on his work. However, the McCoy motor includes a rotating thermosyphon cooling system, which is omitted here in favor of a simple heat density calculation. A permanent magnet machine design is presented and the resulting motors are optimized simultaneously with wound rotor types based on Naval propulsion criteria.