Abstract
Additive manufacturing (AM) has the potential to produce novel high-performance electrical machines, enabling the direct printing of complex shapes and the simultaneous processing of multiple feedstocks in a single build. We examined the properties and functional performance of Fe-3 wt.% Si materials that were printed via selective laser melting, machined down to thin laminates, and stacked to form a stator core of a prototype brushless permanent-magnet electrical motor. Big Area Additive Manufacturing of Nd2Fe14B (NdFeB)–polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) bonded magnets was performed, with them then being magnetized and used for the rotor. The magnetic, mechanical, and electrical properties of the as-printed and various heat-treated thin laminates and the back electromotive force (EMF) of the electrical motors at different rotational speeds were measured. The thin laminates exhibit a maximum relative permeability of 7494 at an applied field of 0.8 Oe and a core loss of about 20 W/lb at 60 Hz with the maximum induction of 15 kg. In addition to the demonstration of AM printing, motor assembly, and complete characterization of printed Fe-3 wt.% Si, this report highlights the areas of improvement needed in printing technologies to achieve AM built electrical motors and the need for isotropic microstructure refinements to make the laminates appropriate for high-mechanical-strength and low-loss rotational electrical devices.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 1706 |
| Journal | Applied Sciences (Switzerland) |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2025 |
Funding
The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Wind Energy Technologies Office Program. BAAM composite magnet printing research was supported by the Critical Materials Innovation Hub funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office. Part of the magnetic property research was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility. Thanks are due to Brian Post and Brian Andrews of Oak Ridge National Laboratory for BAAM printing of the magnets, Alex Plotkowski and Ryan Dehoff of Oak Ridge National Laboratory for SLM printing, and Ryan Halverson and Aaron Williams of Arnold Magnetic Technologies for fabrication of the motor. This manuscript was authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). This work was authored in part by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).
Keywords
- BAAM isotropic NdFeB PPS bonded magnets
- Fe-3 wt.% Si
- back EMF
- electrical motors
- selective laser melting
- soft magnetic materials