Design and Analysis of Low-Cost Ferrite Permanent Magnet Assisted Synchronous Reluctance Rotor and Permanent Magnet Synchronous Rotor with Flux Concentrator

Rare-earth magnets which are the best solutions for PMSM rotors are expensive which makes that other types of motors are used in the applications. The solution of the replacement of these motors with PMSynRM that use low-cost type of ferrite magnets becomes more tempting lately. This paper proposes two different types of low-cost ferrite solutions: first a V permanent magnet assisted synchronous reluctance rotor (VPMSynRM) and the second a permanent magnet synchronous rotor with flux concentrator (PMSM-FC) as an alternative solution to the rare earth inserted tangential permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM). For the first situation, this paper proposes two topologies of PMSynRM: with one row and respective two rows of flow barriers, equipped with ferrite magnets Finite element (FEM) approach has been utilized to show the performance of the proposed rotors. The purpose of the proposed solution is to replace only the rotor of such a PMSM that is already in production, so the size of the stator and the number of windings will remain unchanged. Finally, for the PMSM-FC, the experimental results have been shown. This one is considered competitive, taking into account the resources required for a limitedseries manufacturing. The motivation of this study is to reduce the cost of the rotor by changing the type of PM and by the choice of suitable rotor geometry.