CAREER: Direct Drive E-Field Motors for Sustainable Power Conversion

电动机和发电机，或更一般的“电机”，是现代社会的基本组成部分。地球上超过99%的电力来自发电机，不管它是如何旋转的（风能、煤炭、核能等），其中大约2/3的能量用于为电动机提供动力。全球每年有732亿美元的电机市场。随着电能消耗逐年稳步增长，这些无处不在的工作机器继续大量生产，用于每天每分钟发生的泵送、加热、冷却、钻孔、压制、切割、研磨和移动。传统的电动机依靠磁力运转，由钢、铜线绕组和永磁体制成。这些材料大多来自国外，特别是用于绕组的铜和用于磁铁的稀土元素。这些元素价格昂贵，市场波动较大。这个项目的重点是克服技术障碍，以创造使用电场而不是磁力来运行的马达。电场将允许使用其他材料，例如铝和塑料，这些材料比磁性马达的材料重量更轻，成本更低。这些材料可以在国内采购，而且更容易回收。该项目的教育方面侧重于提高大学预科学生和大学生以及公众的科学和工程素养。大学预科学生的动手科学和工程演示将刺激STEM教育，并吸引学生在他们的职业生涯中追求STEM领域。大学课程将被重新设计，以使学生获得作为有效研究者的技能。为提高公众的科学素养，为提高公众的科学素养，将举办以能源科学和工程为主题的基层讨论会。利用电场作为扭矩产生机制的电机（电场电机）在材料、制造和操作上都比磁性电机有明显的优势。为了实现电场机器的潜力，该项目将开发分析电场机器模型，包括静电学、流体力学和介电材料，以形成一个多物理场分析模型/方法来开发电场机器。这些模型将应用于通过电介质流体的流体动力轴承作用来减小电场电机转子和定子之间的机械间隙。间隙的减小将同时增大操作电场和静电剪应力。该方法将通过多物理场有限元仿真、台架规模实验和基于多物理场分析设计的电场机样机进行验证。原型的性能将与传统的基于磁力的电机设计进行比较。通过超越磁性电机的性能，该项目将通过减少所需的原材料，使电动机更可回收，从而改变电动机的生命周期。由于E-field系统使用电场产生扭矩，不再需要稀土磁铁和硅钢，铜可以用铝代替。

Electric motors and generators, or more generally "electric machines," are a fundamental building block of modern society. Over 99% of all the electricity on the planet originates from an electric generator regardless of how it is spun (wind, coal, nuclear, etc.) and roughly 2/3 of that energy goes on to power electric motors. There is a worldwide market of $73.2 billion annually for electric machines. As electric energy consumption steadily increases annually, these ubiquitous workhorses continue to be mass-produced for performing the pumping, heating, cooling, drilling, pressing, cutting, grinding, and moving that occurs every minute of every day. Traditional electric motors rely on magnetism to function, and are made of steel, copper wire windings, and permanent magnets. These materials are mostly sourced from abroad, especially copper for the windings and rare earth elements for the magnets. These elements are expensive and have a volatile market. This project focuses on overcoming technical barriers in order to create motors that use electric fields, rather than magnetism, to operate. Electric fields would allow other materials, e.g. aluminum and plastic, to be used which are lighter weight and lower cost than materials for magnetism based motors. These materials could be domestically sourced, in addition to being more easily recycled. The educational aspects of the project are focused on increasing the scientific and engineering literacy of pre-college and college students as well as the general public. Hands-on science and engineering demonstrations for pre-college students will stimulate STEM education and entice students to pursue STEM fields in their careers. College courses will be reworked to allow students to gain skills as effective researchers. Science Cafés held for the general public will serve as grass roots discussions on relevant energy science and engineering topics to increase science literacy in the general public. Motors utilizing an electric field as the torque-producing mechanism (E-field Motors) can have significant materials, manufacturing, and operational advantages over their magnetic counterparts. To realize the potential of E-field machines the project will develop analytical E-field machine models encompassing electrostatics, fluid mechanics, and dielectric materials to form a multiphysics analytical model/methodology for E-field machine development. These models will be applied to reduce the mechanical gap between rotors and stators of the E-field motor via hydrodynamic bearing action with a dielectric fluid. The gap reduction will drive up the operational electric field and electrostatic shear stress simultaneously. This approach will be validated by multiphysics finite element simulations, bench scale experiments and E-field machine prototypes based on the multiphysics analytical design. Performance of the prototypes will be compared to traditional magnetism based motor designs. By exceeding the performance of magnetic motors, the project will transform the life cycle of electric motors by making them more recyclable through reducing the raw materials they require. Since E-field systems use electric fields to produce torque, rare earth magnets and silicon steel would no longer be required, and copper could be be replaced with aluminum.