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，无论它是如何旋转的（风能，煤炭，核能等）。大约有2/3的能量用于驱动电动机。全球每年有732亿美元的电机市场。 随着电能消耗每年稳步增长，这些无处不在的工作机器继续大规模生产，用于执行每天每分钟发生的泵送、加热、冷却、钻孔、冲压、切割、研磨和移动。 传统的电动机依靠磁性来工作，并且由钢、铜线绕组和永磁体制成。 这些材料主要来自国外，特别是用于绕组的铜和用于磁体的稀土元素。 这些元素价格昂贵，市场不稳定。该项目的重点是克服技术障碍，以创造使用电场而不是磁性来操作的电机。 电场将允许使用其它材料，例如铝和塑料，其比用于基于磁性的马达的材料重量更轻且成本更低。 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生和大学生以及公众的科学和工程素养。 为大学预科学生提供的动手科学和工程演示将刺激STEM教育，并吸引学生在职业生涯中追求STEM领域。大学课程将被重新设计，以使学生获得有效的研究技能。为公众举办的科学咖啡厅将作为有关能源科学和工程主题的基层讨论，以提高公众的科学素养。 利用电场作为扭矩产生机制的电动机（电场电动机）与磁性电动机相比，在材料、制造和操作方面具有显著优势。为了实现电场机的潜力，该项目将开发分析电场机模型，包括静电学，流体力学和介电材料，以形成电场机开发的多物理分析模型/方法。这些模型将被应用于通过具有介电流体的流体动压轴承作用来减小电场电机的转子和定子之间的机械间隙。差距的减小将同时驱动操作电场和静电剪切应力。 该方法将通过多物理场有限元模拟、台架实验和基于多物理场分析设计的电场机原型进行验证。原型的性能将与传统的基于磁性的电机设计进行比较。通过超越磁力电机的性能，该项目将改变电动机的生命周期，通过减少所需的原材料使其更可回收。 由于电场系统使用电场来产生扭矩，因此不再需要稀土磁体和硅钢，并且可以用铝代替铜。

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.