I-Corps: Bearingless Electric Motors for Industrial Compressor Systems

这个i-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发生产完全集成的电机的新技术。这些机床将利用常规加工不容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执行。该项目的无轴承技术可以通过增强的系统传感能力释放客户收益，以实现预测性维护并减少噪音、振动和刺激性。无轴承技术的价值主张对于污水曝气、余热回收、汽车涡轮增压和热电网存储等透平机械应用尤为重要。通过消除轴承，建议的技术可以增加电机系统的平均故障间隔时间。通过提高系统可靠性和寿命，这项技术可以加速部署高效、可持续和智能的基础设施解决方案，造福社会。这个i-Corps项目基于新型无轴承电机发电机技术的开发，该技术提供磁悬浮的好处，同时解决与磁轴承相关的挑战。用来支撑今天的电机和发电机的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。这些痛点主要以系统可靠性低和总拥有成本高的形式出现。虽然磁轴承制造商试图通过磁悬浮轴来解决这些痛点(从而消除电机/发电机中的机械轴承)，但由于资本成本增加、新产品调试时间较长以及集成挑战，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机/发电机的现有硬件中。传统的电机/发电机使用定子绕组电流来控制转子上的电磁扭矩，而这种无轴承电机/发电机还使用定子电流来控制转子上的电磁力，使电机的行为就像是磁轴承一样。这项技术是通过解锁当今电机/发电机中存在的巨大径向电磁压力来使用的，但由于故意设计对称而被取消。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，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.