Development of hub motor for electric vehicles

• Main Author: Soh, Justin Wei Zhang
• Other Authors: Christopher H. T. Lee
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138996
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This report serves to cover the work done during the duration of this Final Year Project titled “The Development of Hub Motors for Electric Vehicle (EV) application”. Early research into the various electric drive types which fits the criteria for EV application reached the conclusion that Permanent Magnet Brushless (PM BL) drives would be the most suitable focus of research for this project while considering usage for city driving EV application. Following that, further research into the various PM BL drive topology identified the Vernier Permanent Magnet (VPM) drives to be selected as the main focus for this project due to its simple design coupled with high performance results. A comparative study was conducted to see the VPM suitability for EV application closed off the Project. The study compared 3 drives. The first 2 are VPM drives of differing topology, namely, the Inner Rotor (IR-VPM) and Outer Rotor (OR-VPM) VPM drives. These 2 VPM drives were compared against a control commercial drive, the Interior PM (IPM) drive based on the design used in the 2004 Toyota Prius. JMAG program was used in this project to recreate and simulate all 3 drives to collect performance data. Efforts were made to ensure most conditions were the same wherever possible to ensure the fairest comparisons. The result of this comparison shows that VPM drive topologies outperformed the simulated IPM drive, with the OR-VPM drive with the best overall performance.