Finite Element Analysis with Embedded Global Optimization Method for Optimal Design of Electric Devices

In this project, three-dimensional (3D) Finite element method (FEM) embedded global optimization method is applied to obtain optimal design electric devices. FEM with nodal basis function and edge basis function are used to analysis magnetic field and the eddy current problem in electric devices. Time step FEM with slave master technique, circuit coupling technique is applied to simulate the performance of electric motor. Global optimization method including Genetic algorithm (GA), simulated annealing (SA), taboo search (TA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are coupled with FEM program to find the parameters of the optimal design. Parameter extraction technique is applied to extract the mass parameters of electric motor to accelerate the computation speed of optimization process. The coupled FEM with optimization method is applied to optimize the performance of surface mounted PM motor, magnetic gear and an axial flux magnetic motor.;The major contributions of the thesis are reflected in the following aspects:;It proposes a novel moving mesh method to handle the mesh re-generation in the optimization step; Two-grid method is introduced to reduce the computational time of the nonlinear Maxwell system with nonlinear materials, and an effective interpolation of the FE solution from coarse grid to non-nested fine grid is proposed. 3D nodal and edge FEMs are implemented to analyze the eddy current problem involved in electric devices, and coupled with some global optimization process to design optimal electric devices. The FEM with global optimization method is applied to optimize the performance of PM motors and magnetic gears. Slave master technique is extended for 3D FEM computations to handle the non-conforming meshed on the interface between the moving and static parts of the devices. Time step FEM along with the slave master technique and circuit coupling technique is used to simulate the performance of the electric motors.