Investigation of enhancing efficiency and acceleration in a flat shape axial gap motor having high torque characteristic

In recent years, flat shape motors are desired for many industrial applications such as robot arm, automobiles and so on. Thus, this paper discusses axial gap motors which have advantage for flat shape. In general, axial gap motors have high torque density with flat shape because of its wide air-gap area. Axial gap motors are therefore used for limited space like disk shape instead of radial gap motors which are the most general motor. However, compared with radial gap motors, the acceleration of axial gap motors is relatively lower because of the larger moment of inertia. In this paper, rotor structure to enhance the acceleration of axial gap motors is proposed and analyzed by 3D-FEA. In addition, material for permanent magnet of axial gap motors is properly selected in order to enhance efficiency at high speed and high torque area. Finally, prototypes of both axial and radial gap motor with flat shape are evaluated by some experiments. It is found that proposed axial gap motor can achieve the higher torque and efficiency compared with the radial gap motor with flat shape. Proposed axial gap motor additionally achieved the slightly larger acceleration compared with the radial gap motor.