Electromagnetic and thermodynamic design of a novel integrated flux-switching motor-compressor with airfoil-shaped rotor

The objective of this paper is to investigate the electromagnetic design aspects of a novel flux-switching motor-compressor with rotor poles designed as airfoils to perform compression. The proposed novel flux-switching motor-compressor is both an electric motor as well as an axial-flow compressor. Conventional motor-driven compressor system typically requires an electric motor and a gear box to connect the compressor. In contrast, the proposed novel integrated flux-switching motor-compressor simplifies the system by integrating the motor and compressor into a single machine. By eliminating the connection between the electric motor and the compressor, the proposed system has the benefits of compactness, high reliability, and high efficiency. In conventional compressor system, the electromagnetic design of the electric motor and the thermodynamic design of the compressor are not related. In the proposed integrated motor-compressor, the electromagnetic design is influenced by the shape of the novel machine including the curved rotor poles (or blades) and modified stator parts. The operating principle of the proposed motor-compressor is discussed. The design considerations including using step skewing for the stator part and soft magnetic composite (SMC) for the rotor design are elaborated. The electromagnetic performances of the proposed novel motor-compressor are compared with the conventional flux-switching motor. Results from finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validate the proposed novel motor-compressor.