IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 50, NO.

11, NOVEMBER 2014

8001804

A Novel Magnetic Gear With Intersecting Axes

Yulong Liu, S. L. Ho, and W. N. Fu
Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Compared with mechanical gears, a magnetic gear (MG) has many merits by virtue of its contactless feature, high efficiency
and inherent overload protection. In this paper, a novel MG with intersecting shaft axes based on the flux modulation effect is
proposed. Compared with previous MGs, the transmission direction of the novel MG can be designed very flexibly and it also has
good competitive edge in relation to the use of permanent magnets, which enables it to have a relatively high-torque density. The
working principle and performance are validated by an example design using finite element method. The effects of the dimensional
parameters on the torque performance are analyzed. It is also verified that the torque density can be further improved by adopting
a flux concentration configuration in its rotor design. It is concluded from the torque per unit volume density performance that the
novel MG is very promising as a substitute to conventional gears.
Index Terms Finite element method (FEM), flux-modulation, magnetic gear (MG), permanent magnet (PM).

I. I NTRODUCTION

AGNETIC gear (MG) is a very promising concept as

it has the merits of having high efficiency, low maintenance, no audible noise, and inherent overload protection
feature when compared with mechanical gears. The history of
MG can be traced back to the early 20th century. Some MG
topologies similar to mechanical spur gears or worm gears
were proposed in the early decades [1], [2]. However, the
poor performance of permanent magnets (PMs) at that time
undermines the full potential of MGs in practical use. Since
the 1980s, the availability of high-performance NdFeB magnet
largely revives the development of MGs. Some magnetic spur
gear topologies are proposed in [3][5]. The worm gears, skew
gears, and bevel gears with PMs are also analyzed [6][8].
A magnetic bevel gear with a topology similar to that of the
mechanical bevel gears is shown in Fig. 1(a). However, all
these MGs have a poor utilization of PMs because only a
small fraction of PMs contribute to torque transmission at any
time, which is quite similar to the situation of mechanical
gears in that only a few teeth mesh at any one time. This
results in a low torque per unit volume density, which is only
around 20 kNm/m3 for magnetic spur gears, 2 kNm/m3 for
magnetic worm- or bevel-gears and even lower for magnetic
skew gears [9].
Recently, a coaxial MG in which some iron segments are
planted between two PM rotors breaks the limitation of having
a constant 1:1 gear ratio for coaxial gears [10]. Fig. 1(b)
shows the structure of a coaxial MG. The rotors have different
magnetic pole-pair numbers. Due to the introduction of the
iron segments, PMs on the two rotors could interact via a
common space harmonic component by virtue of the flux
modulation principle. The two rotors rotate at different speeds
with different torques and thus a gearing effect is achieved.
This coaxial MG has a better utilization of PMs and it has
a significantly higher torque density than those in previous
designs. However, the coaxial input and output shafts design is
largely limiting its application range. In [11], an MG arrangement is proposed to extend this coaxial MG to offset such
Manuscript received March 7, 2014; revised May 7, 2014; accepted May 15,
2014. Date of current version November 18, 2014. Corresponding author:
W. N. Fu (e-mail: eewnfu@polyu.edu.hk).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2014.2325608

Fig. 1.

(a) Magnetic bevel gear. (b) Coaxial MG.

shortcomings, but the iron segments which have the shape of

simple broken lines in that design are not very good flux paths.
In this paper, a novel MG with intersecting axes (IAMG)
is proposed. The basic idea is using segmented iron to
transmit the PM flux as well as generating an asynchronous
harmonic field for the interaction of two rotors. By changing
the shape of the iron segments, the input and output shaft
axes can intersect at any angle or even stagger in space.
By designing a combination of PM pole-pair numbers and
the iron segment number, various gear ratios can be realized.
Compared with previous MGs, the proposed IAMG has the
merits of being very flexible in the transmission direction as
well as having a high-torque density due to relatively good
utilization of PMs. It is expected to become a promising
substitute to mechanical gears, such as skew gear, bevel gear,
and hypoid gear, especially in applications where there is
a high requirement on efficiency or quietness. As an example,
an IAMG with perpendicular shaft axes is analyzed using
finite element method (FEM). A parametric analysis is done
to study the effects of the geometric parameters on the torque
performance of the proposed IAMG. The performance of the
configuration with flux concentration is also investigated.
II. S TRUCTURE AND W ORKING P RINCIPLE
The proposed IAMG topology is shown in Fig. 2. The
structure of the rotors is similar to that of a conventional
surface-mounted PM machine. The PMs are all magnetized
along the radial direction relative to their rotation axes. The
iron segments surrounding the rotors function to transmit and
modulate the PM flux. In this paper, solid steel is used for the
iron segments because the maximum speed of the prime mover

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8001804

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 50, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2014

Fig. 2. Configuration of an IAMG with perpendicular shaft axes. (a) Total

assembly. (b) Active part.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4. (a) Radial flux density in the airgap adjacent to rotor 1 due to the
PMs of rotor 2 and (b) corresponding spatial harmonics.

Flux density vector diagram in the iron segments.

is assumed to be 30 r/min and hence the eddy current inside it

is small. Soft magnetic composite material or laminated silicon
steel may be used when high-operation speed is needed.
The working principle of the novel MG is similar to that
of the coaxial MG in [10] except that the iron segments
are stationary. The flux density vector diagram in the iron
segments is shown in Fig. 3. It should be noted that a fraction
of the magnetic fluxes are appearing as leakage at the ends
of the IAMG. This implies that there are end effects in this
structure and it should be reduced by properly designing the
dimensional parameters. The radial flux density in the two
airgaps and the corresponding spatial harmonics are shown in
Figs. 4 and 5. The 10th and 18th harmonics are dominant in
the two airgaps and the rotors could thus interact via these
two harmonic components.

Fig. 5. (a) Radial flux density in the airgap adjacent to rotor 2 due to the
PMs of rotor 1 and (b) corresponding spatial harmonics.

III. PARAMETRIC A NALYSIS

The main geometric parameters used to study of the IAMG
are shown in Fig. 6. The fixed parameters as well as the
material properties are given in Table I.
To investigate the effects of the geometric parameters on
the performance of the IAMG to realize a reasonable design,
a parametric analysis aiming at maximizing the torque density
is done using finite element analysis. For the calculation of
torque density, the torque of rotor 2, and the volume of the
active part (the total volume surrounded by the iron segments)
are considered. The outer radius Rs as well as Rc and Ri is
fixed. The variables L 1 , L 2 , Hpm , and Hs are analyzed one by
one and those parametric values giving the best performance

Fig. 6.

Geometric parameters.

during the independent analysis are selected in the overall

design.
The analysis results are shown in Fig. 7. As can be expected,
the torques increase with L 1 . However, the torque density
achieves its peak value when L 1 is around 160 mm. This is
because the MG suffers heavily from the end effect when the

LIU et al.: NOVEL MG WITH INTERSECTING AXES

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TABLE I
F IXED G EOMETRIC PARAMETERS AND M ATERIAL P ROPERTIES

TABLE II
C OMPARISON OF I NITIAL AND F INAL PARAMETERS

rotor length is small, but then the saturation problem in the iron
segments gradually outweighs the end effect influence when
the rotor length gets larger. The effect of L 2 on the torque
performance is quite similar to that of L 1 . An increase in Hpm
causes the torques to increase until Hpm reaches about 7 mm,
after which the torques are nearly constant, which is quite
similar to what happens in a conventional PM machine. The
torques increase with Hs when Hs is small because saturation
in the iron segments is alleviated. However, the compression
of rotor diameter outweighs the saturation problem when
Hs is large enough and thus the torque decreases.
A comparison between the initial and the final designs is
listed in Table II. The torque-angle curve of the IAMG with
its final parameters is shown in Fig. 8. The pull-out torque
waveform with rotor 1 rotating at 10 r/min and rotor 2 at
18 r/min is shown in Fig. 9. From the graph, the torque ratio
is 1.78, which is quite similar to the theoretical gear ratio
of 1.8.

Fig. 7. Torque or volume torque density as functions of (a) length of rotor 1,

(b) length of rotor 2, (c) thickness of PM, and (d) thickness of iron segments.

IV. IAMG W ITH F LUX C ONCENTRATION

Similarly to the PM synchronous machines, the torque
density of IAMG can also be further improved by arranging
the PMs with a flux concentration configuration. As shown
in Fig. 10, a flux-concentrated IAMG is obtained by only
changing the rotors of the proposed IAMG with its final
parameters. The PMs are all magnetized along the azimuthal
direction and every two nearby PMs are magnetized in the
opposite direction. Thus, the flux is concentrated and forced
to pass through the steel poles in the radial direction. The
radial thickness of PMs is extended to 30 mm.

Fig. 8.

Torque-angle curve.

The torque-angle curve of the flux-concentrated IAMG is

analyzed using FEM and shown in Fig. 11. As a larger
PM surface area contributes to increases in the total flux
in the airgap, the pull-out torque of the proposed IAMG
is significantly improved when compared with its original
surface-mounted configuration.

8001804

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 50, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2014

TABLE III
C OMPARISON OF IAMG S AND B EVEL G EARS

Fig. 9.

Fig. 10.

Pull-out torque waveform.

IAMG with flux concentration.

V. C ONCLUSION
By exploiting the flux modulation effect, a novel MG with
intersecting axes is proposed. Using FEM, the effects of
dimensional parameters on the torque performance are investigated based on parametric analysis. The configuration with
flux modulation is also studied. A torque density comparable
with a mechanical bevel gear can be achieved. The IAMG
is expected to be a promising substitute to corresponding
conventional gears like skew gear, bevel gear, or hypoid gear.
It can also be conveniently combined with an electric machine
for some special applications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, Hong Kong, under Grant G-YM14 and Grant
G-YM15.
R EFERENCES

Fig. 11.

Torque-angle curve of the IAMG with flux concentration.

Table III shows the key parameters of the proposed IAMG,

a magnetic bevel gear proposed in [8] and a mechanical
bevel gear. Although the gear ratios are different, the torque
density of the proposed IAMG is expected to be higher than
that of the conventional magnetic bevel gear. Considering that
its torque density can be further improved by decreasing the
airgap length, using PM with higher remanence and shortening
the length of the curved iron segments, the IAMG should be
comparable to the mechanical bevel gear in the table.

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