Structural Design for Vibration Reduction in Brushless DC Stator

Reducing the noise and vibration of the BLDC motors is very essential for some special applications. In this paper, a new structural design is introduced to increase the natural frequencies of the stator in BLDC motors as increasing the natural frequencies can reduce the severe effects of the structural resonances, including high levels of noise and vibration. The design is based on placing a single hole on definite regions at the stator cross sectional area (each region contains one tooth and its upper parts in the stator yoke) in an optimum way by which the natural frequencies at different modes are shifted to the higher values. The optimum diameter and locations for the holes are extracted by the Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and the modal analyses in the iterative process are done by Finite Element Method (FEM). Moreover, the motor performance by the optimum stator structure is analyzed by FEM and compared with the prototype motor. Preventing the stator magnetic saturation and the motor cogging torque enhancement are the two constraints of the optimization problem. The optimal structural design method is applied experimentally and the validity of the design method is confirmed by the simulated and experimental results.