PFI-RP: High-Reliability, Low-Cost, Rare-Earth-Free Electric Motor for Electrified Transportation Applications

这一创新-研究伙伴关系(PFI-RP)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发一种商业上可行的、无稀土材料的电动汽车发动机，并采用新的设计和分析工具。该项目如果成功，将改变目前的设计做法，将低成本、高性能、无稀土的磁体材料无缝地集成到广泛的清洁能源系统中。开发的解决方案可以为国内外电气化交通行业带来高效、可靠、紧凑和低成本的电机和发电机。这将加快向清洁能源生产和消费的更快、更容易的迁移，同时避免关键矿物的全球供应链中断，并限制化石能源的使用和二氧化碳(CO2)的排放。该项目是跨学科的，跨越了先进的磁体材料和机械工程中的热分析，以解决电气工程中的电磁场、转矩、发电和效率问题。针对电气化交通行业目标市场细分的新型高可靠性、低成本电机的设计具有创新性和变革性。独特的设计程序和三维热分析和优化器可以产生数百个候选设计，使用一种新的非稀土磁体材料作为稀土磁体的替代品。这将导致算法和工具的出现，使工程师和科学家直接受益。通过了解非稀土磁体退磁风险的基本机制及其热性能，拟议的研究将影响高度可靠的下一代电机和清洁能源系统，并得出节能、低成本的设计和控制策略。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，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation – Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) project is to develop a commercially-viable, rare-earth material-free electric vehicle motor with new design and analysis tools. This project, if successful will transform current design practices, seamlessly integrating low-cost, high-performance, rare-earth-free magnet materials into the wide spectrum of clean energy systems. The developed solution could result in highly efficient, reliable, compact, and low-cost motors and generators in the domestic and international electrified transportation industry. This will accelerate faster and easier migrations toward clean energy generation and consumption while avoiding global supply chain disruption of critical minerals and limiting fossil energy usage and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The proposed project is cross-disciplinary, spanning advanced magnet materials and thermal analysis in mechanical engineering to solving electromagnetic field, torque, power generation, and efficiency problems in electrical engineering. The design of new high-reliability and low-cost electric motor for target market segmentation in the electrified transportation industry is novel and transformative. The unique design procedure with a 3-dimensional thermal analysis and optimizer can generate several hundred design candidates with a new non-rare earth magnet material as an alternative to the rare-earth magnets. This will result in algorithms and tools that can benefit engineers and scientists directly. By understanding the fundamental mechanism of demagnetization risk of non-rare earth magnets and their thermal properties, the proposed research will impact highly reliable next-generation motor and clean energy systems and derive energy-efficient, low-cost design and control strategies.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.