Characterization of Electrical Steels for High-Speed Induction Motors Applications: Going Beyond the Common Practices

The objective of the present work is to assess the impact of improvements in standard characterization parameters of electrical steels, typically found in manufacturer catalogs (B50 and W10/400), in the performance of high-speed electrical motors. The electrical steel manufacturer has to deal with numerous process variables and long and expensive development times to come up with new products. Hence, even small improvements in the B50 and W10/400 parameters are considered to be great achievements. In order to verify if such improvements really translate into real gains in electrical motors, a series of prototypes was constructed with newly developed electrical steels. The core losses of these prototypes were determined by the loss segregation method. Test results support the conclusion that the standard steel characterization parameters do not carry enough information for steel and motor manufacturers to conclude on the performance of an electrical steel grade. An expanded datasheet for electrical steels is proposed and could be used in the steel development process as a new product assessment tool. The proposed datasheet carries useful information for both steel manufacturer and electrical motor designer.