I-Corps: Bearingless Electric Motors for Industrial Compressor Systems

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发生产完全集成电机的新技术。 这些机器将利用传统加工不易制造的几何形状来支持三维磁通路径，并在所有六个自由度上驱动。该项目的无轴承技术可以通过增强的系统传感能力来解锁客户收益，从而实现预测性维护并降低噪音，振动和粗糙度。无轴承技术的价值主张在废水曝气、废热回收、汽车涡轮增压器和热电网存储等可再生能源应用中尤为突出。通过消除轴承，所提出的技术可以增加电机系统故障之间的平均时间。通过提高系统的可靠性和使用寿命，该技术可以加快高效、可持续和智能基础设施解决方案的部署，造福社会。I-Corps项目基于开发新型无轴承电动发电机技术，该技术提供磁悬浮的优势，同时解决与磁悬浮相关的挑战。用于支撑当今电动机和发电机轴的机械轴承是电机集成商、所有者和操作员的主要痛苦来源。这些痛点主要表现为系统可靠性低和总拥有成本高。虽然磁轴承制造商试图通过磁悬浮轴来解决这些痛点（从而消除电动机/发电机的机械轴承），但由于资本成本增加，新产品调试时间过长以及集成挑战，这种解决方案的市场接受度有限。该项目的无轴承电机技术将磁轴承的功能集成到电动机/发电机的现有硬件中。虽然传统的电动机/发电机使用定子绕组电流来控制它们的转子上的电磁转矩，但是这种无轴承电动机/发电机另外使用定子电流来控制转子上的电磁力，这使得电动机就好像它也是磁轴承一样起作用。这项技术是通过释放当今电动机/发电机中存在的巨大径向电磁压力而使用的，但由于设计对称性而被故意取消。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估而被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of new technology that produces completely integrated electric machines. These machines will leverage geometry not readily manufactured with conventional machining to support 3-dimensional flux paths and actuate across all six degrees of freedom. This project's bearingless technology can unlock customer gains through enhanced system sensing capability to enable predictive maintenance and decreased noise, vibration, and harshness. The value proposition of bearingless technology is particularly strong for turbomachinery applications in wastewater aeration, waste heat recovery, automotive turbocharges, and thermal grid storage. By eliminating bearings, the proposed technology can increase the mean time between failure of motor systems. Through increased system reliability and lifetime, this technology can accelerate deployment of highly efficient, sustainable, and intelligent infrastructure solutions for the benefit of society.This I-Corps project is based on the development of new bearingless electric motor generator technology that provides the benefits of magnetic levitation while solving the challenges associated with magnetic bearings. The mechanical bearings used to support the shaft of today's electric motors and generators are a source of major pain for integrators, owners, and operators of electric machines. These pain points primarily come in the form of low system reliability and high total cost of ownership. While magnetic bearing manufacturers have attempted to solve these pain points by magnetically levitating the shaft (thereby eliminating mechanical bearings from motor/generators), this solution has seen limited market acceptance due to increased capital cost, lengthy timelines for new product commissioning, and integration challenges. This project's bearingless motor technology integrates the functionality of a magnetic bearing into the existing hardware of an electric motor/generator. While conventional electric motor/generators use stator winding current to control electromagnetic torque on their rotor, this bearingless motor/generators additionally use stator current to control electromagnetic forces on the rotor that make the motor act as if it were also a magnetic bearing. This technology is employed by unlocking the large radial electromagnetic pressure that is present in today's electric motor/generators but is canceled by deliberate design symmetry.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.