®

Brushless Interior Permanent Magnet (IPM) Motors –

A New Solution for High Performance Appliances

By Dan M. Ionel, Ph.D.,

Engineering Fellow, A. O. Smith Corporate Technology Center,
Milwaukee, WI.

Permanent magnet (PM) brushless (BL) motors have emerged in recent years as a very strong
contender to replace induction motors used in electronically controlled variable speed applications. In
most cases, BLPM motors can provide superior performance in terms of increased efficiency and reduced
noise, while the total cost differential for motor plus electronics is subject to relatively fast payback,
especially considering the increasing cost of energy.

At the core of a BLPM motor are the PMs, which are placed in the rotor and provide the magnetizing
flux. One immediate advantage is that in a typical design, there are virtually no rotor losses.
Different magnet grades can be employed for rotor manufacturing, with ceramic-ferrites and rare-earth,
especially neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB), being the common choices. In particular, the sintered NdFeB is
a strong material with energy density higher by one order of magnitude than that of the lower cost ferrites.
Although NdFeB is a more expensive material, it enables overall motor size reduction and/or energy
increase and, through careful design, can lead to an attractive motor solution.
Why is an IPM design so attractive?
BLPM motors can be classified in two major groups:
motors with the PMs mounted on the surface of the rotor and
motors with PMs placed in the interior of the rotor core (Fig.1).
The first group is commonly referred to as surface PM (SPM),
and the typical manufacturing technology involves gluing arc
magnets and/or securing them with special tape on the outer
surface of a rotor core. While this technology may be cost
effective in conjunction with large ferrite magnets or with
bonded magnet rings, it presents challenges for the sintered
NdFeB designs. In this case, the solution is more complicated
because, in order to cope with thin magnets and to minimize
eddy-current losses in the magnets, multiple smaller magnets
are often used to make one pole.
Fig. 1 Schematic cross-section of a 4-pole brushless (BL) motor with surface
mounted permanent magnets (PM; left) and of an interior PM motor (right).
Magnets of North and South polarity are shown in red and blue.
On the other hand, IPM motors typically employ less expensive
rectangular blocks, which are placed inside slots made in the
laminated rotor core. Magnet retention is therefore enhanced
and yields to simplifications in the manufacturing process. There
are a large variety of designs for IPM rotors; shown in Fig.1 is just
the most conventional version with PM blocks magnetized parallel
to the center pole radius.
Another major type of IPM rotor (not shown) employs magnets
placed in a “spoke” arrangement along the rotor radius and
magnetized tangentially. The “spoke” design has the intrinsic
advantage of magnetic flux concentration, so that in high
polarity motors the flux density in the motor air-gap is increased.
This leads the way to further performance improvement and/or
size reduction. Many combinations of the magnet shape,
position and number of magnets per pole is possible for IPM
motors. In recent years, A. O. Smith Corporation has developed
proprietary solutions to optimize designs for different applications.
Better demagnetization withstand is another advantage of IPM
motors. Unlike in the SPM, in which the PM is directly exposed to the
magnetic field of the air-gap, in an IPM the PMs are shielded
by the rotor steel that provides a leakage path for the arma-
ture reaction flux. As a consequence, thinner magnets can be
employed, potentially resulting in material cost savings.
The synchronous electromagnetic torque in an IPM motor has
two major components (Fig. 2). The main component is the
alignment torque, which is proportional with the flux linkage in
the stator windings produced by the rotor magnets and with
the vector component of the stator current that is in quadra-
ture with the magnet flux. This current component is “active”
only, i.e. only produces torque and does not contribute to the
magnetization of the motor magnetic circuit. In an SPM, this
is the only synchronous component of the electromagnetic
torque.
In an IPM, due to the rotor variable magnetic reluctance, i.e.
saliency, an additional torque component is developed. By
means of electronic control, the torque angle, i.e. the angle
between the magnet flux phasor and the current phasor, can be
optimally set in order to increase the torque output for a given
current magnitude. In the example of Fig. 2 the optimal angle is
approximately 115 degrees.
Fig. 2 Electromagnetic torque components in an example IPM motor.
Drive electronics tracks rotor position and controls the vector current in
order to maximize torque production.
This maximum torque per amp control procedure requires
a demagnetizing current component that also reduces the mag-
netic circuit loading and core losses. As shown in the graph, an
IPM motor has the potential of increased specific power or
reduced size for the same rated power, as compared with an
SPM machine. At reduced loads, both the active (quadra-
ture) and demagnetizing current component are reduced
yielding a relatively flat efficiency curve, yet another advantage
of BLPM machines over induction motors.
High efficiency without electronics
Despite recent advancements, for some applications the
added cost of a variable speed drive still remains prohibi-
tive. In this case, the induction motor, the industry “work
horse” for the last century, appears to be irreplaceable.
However, BLPM machines can also be made to operate
directly from the mains and benefit of increased efficiency
without electronics!

The solution, called a line-fed IPM motor involves the use of a

rotor that includes, apart from the PMs, also a squirrel cage,
similar to that of an induction machine. In the cut-away rotor
example of Fig. 3, three magnets per pole are fitted in the
rectangular slots. During the motor transient start-up, the rotor
cage contributes to the production of an asynchronous torque
that overcomes a PM transient braking torque and accelerates Fig. 3 Stator and cut-away rotor for a 2-pole line-fed IPM motor,
the rotor. In typical steady-state operation, the rotor moves in which operates at synchronous speed without electronic controls.
synchronism with the air-gap revolving magnetic field. The rotor includes a squirrel cage and PMs.

Electronic control boosts motor and drive performance

From the point of view of electronic commutation, brushless
PM motors can be driven with “trapezoidal” or “sinusoidal”
current waveforms. The control of the first type, also referred
to as BLDC, is typically simpler, especially when done sensor-
less, i.e. without a rotor position sensor. Nevertheless, the
BLAC control with sinewave currents typically has superior
performance both in terms of increased efficiency and
reduced noise.
IPM motors particularly shine when used in conjunction with
vector control. In this case, the electronic controller “tracks” the
rotor position with respect to the stator (armature) field and
“injects” the current such as to optimize torque production and
efficiency, as explained with reference to Fig. 2. The salient rotor
structure of the IPMs lends itself to robust sensorless applications.
especially at low speed or torque. A concentrated winding
design can be more sensitive than its distributed winding
counterpart in terms of the influence of tolerances, particularly
those of the air-gap, on the motor unbalanced magnetic pull.
The example in Fig. 4 is from an electromagnetic finite-element
model analyzed with the PC-FEA software produced by the
SPEED Laboratory, University of Glasgow, UK. This detailed
method of motor performance simulation is preferred because
of the strong non-linearity present in the magnetic circuit of a
high-performance IPM design.

In principle, both SPM and IPM rotor types can be mated with
the same stator design. However, the design should be care-
fully completed in order to ensure that, among other char-
acteristics, a sinusoidal back emf is achieved so that the elec-
tromagnetic torque ripple is reduced. In this respect, a low
harmonic content of the air-gap magnetic field is preferable
and is also beneficial for reducing core losses.

A distributed stator winding – e.g. concentric or lap, typical for

induction machines – can also be used with a lamination
having more than one slot per pole and phase (e.g. Figs. 1 and 3).
For fractional slot designs, a concentrated winding with coils
wound around a tooth can be employed. This second choice Fig 4. Magnetic field in the cross-section of a 3-phase 9-slot 6-pole electronically
may result, depending on the actual application require- controlled IPM motor. Coils are wound around every tooth and inter-connected to
ments, in reduced copper losses that could boost efficiency, produce a concentrated type winding.
Applications
Some of the most popular IPM applications, possibly not
familiar enough to the wide general audience, are the electric
motors/generators of hybrid or all-electric vehicles. In the
servo motor world more and more designs are shifting away
from SPM to IPM to take advantage of the inherent advantages
previously discussed. In principle, there are no size limitations to
IPM designs and these can be developed from small fractional
horsepower (hp) to large – hundreds of hp ratings.
running the driven mechanism for longer time but at
substantially reduced speed and torque. For relatively small
ratings, the power electronics hardware for IPMs is based
on the AOS ECM platform, which is currently in production
(Fig. 5), and a new controller incorporates proprietary
vector algorithms that maximize motor performance.

Compressors, including those of smaller ratings for residential

unitary air-conditioning applications, are potential candidate
applications for IPM designs. For example, the use of a line-fed
IPM, as the one exemplified in Fig. 3, can increase the motor
rated efficiency by up to 4 points above the already high
efficiency of a top of the line induction motor. Such improvement
is possible while maintaining the starting torque requirements
of a demanding application, such as a reciprocating compressor.

The addition of electronics makes possible true variable speed

operation and enables further energy savings achieved by Fig.5 AOS ECM (Electronically Commutated Motor) - motor and electronics platform.

Dr. Dan M. Ionel is the Electromagnetics Engineering Fellow of

A. O. Smith Corp., Milwaukee, WI. He has 20+ years of experience
with electric motors and earlier in his career worked in the U.K.
for Invensys Brook Crompton Co. and for the SPEED Laboratory,
University of Glasgow.

A. O. Smith Corporate Technology Center

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