Integrated Machine design for Electro Mechanical Actuation

Chris Gerada, Keith Bradley

School of Electrical Engineering University of Nottingham Nottingham, UK, NG7 2RD chris.gerada@nottingham.ac.uk
Abstract This paper describes work on an integrated electro mechanical actuator intended as a technology demonstrator to satisfy future aircraft requirements for a typical mid spoiler actuation system for a large civil aircraft. The design and analysis of a directly coupled motor to a roller screw without any intermediate gear box will be detailed in this paper. The main goals of the design are a high level of actuator integration in order to minimize weight and volume, fault tolerance and high reliability.

Chris Whitley, Graham Towers

Smiths Aerospace Actuation Systems Wobaston Road Wolverhampton. WV9 5EW, UK roller screw design directly coupled to each other improving the reliability of the actuator and at the same time reaching the same power densities of the geared system. EMAs for flight surfaces usually consist of a high speed motor coupled through a gearbox to a ball or roller screw. For a given power, the higher the speed of the machine the smaller will be the motor, however the greater the gear ratio and hence the size of the gearbox. Another way of achieving a high power density is to use a high pole number machine. The active rotor magnetic material decreases as the pole number goes up leaving a hollow space in the centre of the machine. The idea is to integrate the ball or roller screw nut inside the rotor and have a high pole numbered machine driving it. II. MACHINE DESIGN ISSUES FOR AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS

I.

INTRODUCTION

As the modern aircraft heads towards a more electric based generation and distribution system there is an increased drive towards having electrical loads. One of the most researched areas are primary and secondary flight actuation surfaces. Using an electrical supplied actuator gives the distinct advantage of not needing a hydraulic supply whith all its associated disadvantages. In general electrical supplied actuators can be divided into EHAs (Electro Hydraulic Actuators) and EMAs (Electro Mechanical Actuators). EHAs consist of a variable speed pump supplying a local hydraulic actuation system whilst EMAs are often just a variable speed electrical motor drive coupled to a ball or roller screw through a gearbox. Whilst EMAs offer a total leakage free solution, EHAs are often preferred to EMAs in safety critical applications due to the problem of possible mechanical jams in EMAs. The jamming issue with EMAs is currently being researched from both the material surface properties point of view as well as finding safe and effective methods to disengage a jammed EMA from the flight surface. Electrical machines are an enabling technology in reducing the probability of an EMA jamming. This work will look at the compromises and issues with driving a roller screw directly coupled to an electrical machine, rather than driven through a gear box. A foreseeable advantage is the reduced jamming probability and the increased reliability of the actuation system. On the other hand one can argue that a directly coupled motor will lead to a larger motor as motor size is roughly proportional to torque and thus having a heavier and bigger actuator. This work looks at a novel integrated machine and

The general requirements for any aircraft actuation drive are minimum size, weight and costs to reach the necessary performance requirements in addition to a degree of fault tolerance and reliability depending on the flight surface in consideration and the number of backup actuators opted for. Fault tolerance is best achieved by having redundant drive components. This may either be achieved by duplicating or triplicating the whole drive or otherwise have independent redundant systems the number of duplicates depending on the reliability of the particular component. It is however important in any choice of fault tolerant topology to have each system isolated from the others so as to minimize the possibility of common failure. This is finally a cost and size optimization exercise depending heavily on the actuator function. From an electrical drive point of view it is often argued that the electrical machine itself can be made fault tolerant up to a certain degree not needing a duplicate one. This is usually achived by designing machines to operate with short circuit and open circuit faults. This is done by using multi phase machines and ensuring that the phase windings and the power electronics supplying them are magnetically, electrically and physically decoupled. The main disadvantage of using

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multiphase machines is the duplication of the power and control electronics, which have a low reliability. Another compromise to make is on the type of machine to use. Sinusoidally excited machines are generally preferred if the machine is to be fed from an AC bus, this being mainly due to the compatibility with matrix converters which give distinct advantages in case of an AC distribution system, mainly due to the elimination of the DC link and the unreliable electrolytic capacitors [1,2]. Sinusoidally supplied machines are however seen as not being fault tolerant in their more traditional form due to the high magnetic and physical coupling of their phase windings. Non-sinusoidally fed machines are potentially more fault tolerant but are not practical to be used with a matrix converter due to the resulting supply current distortion. Machines which are sinusoidally supplied but have concentrated coils giving the required levels of phase isolation are seen as a good solution for such applications [3,4]. A) Geared vs. Direct Drive Systems There are a number of advantages in using a direct drive system. The elimination of the intermediate gearbox gives the following advantages : 1) Reduced Component Count 2) Reduced jamming probability thus increasing reliability 3) Increased System Efficiency 4) Reduced Inertia This may potentially lead as well to a reduced actuator weight and volume. Increased system efficiency due to the elimination of the intermediate gearbox will reflect in a lower power rating of the machine. As regards to the inertia, this may be of a major advantage depending on the actuator acceleration requirements and on the duty cycle characteristics. In the developed system there was a fivefold improvement in the inertia of the motor and gear train in going to a direct drive system rather than using a gearbox. III. MID SPOILER ACTUATION SYSTEM

for roll assist, smaller movements are seen with a high dynamic response to match the aileron movements. This dual role of the spoiler surface makes the actuator performance requirements quite demanding. The duty cycle of the spoiler varies during the flight with higher duty during the landing periods and a lower one during the cruise. Full movement of the spoiler is only required at landing for descent and post touch down. During cruise there are only occasional small movements of the surface for roll assistance. The actuator itself is normally acting to hold the surface down as the aerodynamic forces over the wing attempt to lift the surface. By incorporating the roll assist requirement to the spoiler surface, the duty on the actuator becomes more onerous. The dynamic requirements for the actuator become highly demanding such that a hold down brake is unfeasible when the actuator is stowed, then a steady state background load has also to be dealt with. These two elements result in the spoiler case being very similar as to that for the primaries where efficiency becomes key to the actuator performance. Other demanding requirements on the actuator occur in emergency scenarios. One is when there is the case of an aborted take off and the other is an emergency descent in the event of cabin depressurisation. This last case is the most demanding requirement for a spoiler as it requires full deployment for a period of minutes. IV. MACHINE DESIGN

The actuator considered in this study is that for a mid spoiler flight surface for a large civil aircraft. An EMA using a highspeed motor coupled to the roller screw through a 6:1 speed reduction gearbox has already been developed. The design of a machine able of the same performance at the roller screw end without the gearbox is considered and compared with the existing actuator. The Spoiler surface serves a dual purpose in flight. It can, as its name suggests, spoil the flow of air over the surface of the wing thereby reducing lift and it can also be used in conjunction with the ailerons to assist the roll function. In the spoiler function large movements of the actuator are seen in order to fully extend the surface and spoil the lift. In its use

The machine has to meet all the transient and steady state specifications keeping the machine size to a minimum. The size of the machine is mainly limited by physical dimension constraints, the loading characteristics and the temperature range the actuator should be able to operate in. The internal rotor diameter is constrained by the roller screw nut whilst the outside stator diameter is constrained by the maximum package size. A surface mount magnet machine was opted for due to high torque requirement throughout the operating speed range and due to the relatively low centrifugal forces experienced by the magnets. A) Number of Poles As the number of poles goes up the copper packing factor is reduced if the number of slots per pole per phase is left unchanged. In order to reduce the number of slots and maximise the slot fill factor, as well as to achieve the necessary isolation between the phase windings, modular wound machines were considered. These are machines which have coils wound around consecutive or alternate teeth and have a number of slots per pole per phase which is less than 1. The two machines which are considered for this work are a 20 and 22 pole machines, both having a 24 slot stator. Fig.1 shows a cross-section of the 20 pole machine. The number of poles was chosen as a compromise between, the restriction of the

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electrical supply frequency, the minimum rotor internal diameter so as to fit the nut of the roller screw in the centre and the outside stator diameter limited by the physical space the actuator has to fit in. The number of slots was chosen so as to have a high fundamental winding factor, isolation between the phase windings and a high slot fill factor. B) Winding Configuration For a traditional, distributive wound machine, the minimum number of slots for a 3phase 20 pole machine would be 60. This results in a machine with large end winding length, low copper packing factor and with windings highly coupled both physically and magnetically. Going for a concentrated wound motor, having the number of slots close to the number of poles is inductive to a high fundamental coil pitch factor as well as a high frequency, low magnitude cogging torque. The main disadvantage of these types of windings is the high harmonic content of the stator MMF.

Table 1. Winding factors

All teeth wound Poles Stator Slots Dist. Fac. Coil P Fac. Wind. Fac. 20 24 0.966 0.966 0.933156 22 24 0.958 0.991 0.949378 Alternate wound teeth Poles Stator Slots Dist. Fac. Coil P Fac. Wind. Fac. 20 24 1 0.966 0.966 22 24 0.966 0.991 0.957306

Figures 2a and 2b represent the fundamental emf phasors for each coil round every single tooth for the 20 and 22 pole motors respectively. In both cases there is symmetry between the north and south poles of the machine hence not having any even harmonics in the MMF distribution or in the phase EMF. Defining the fundamental field as being a 2 pole field with a wavelength of D, then, for the 3 phase 24 slot 20 pole machine stator MMF harmonics occur at 2, 10, 14, 22,26,, whilst for the 24 slot 22 pole machine MMF harmonics occur at 1,5,7,11,13, These harmonics are likely to cause a number of undesirable effects, such as saturation, acoustic noise, and excessive eddy current losses in the magnets, rotor iron and any conductive retaining sleeve. Having a large airgap, surface mount magnet motor, the extent of all these parasitic effects is relatively small. In order to have a physical separation between phases an alternative winding arrangement has to be adopted. This is basically achieved by halving the number of coils, winding them on alternate teeth and doubling the number of turns. The resulting coil EMF phasor diagram for such windings is shown in Fig. 2.c for the 20 pole motor and in Fig. 2.d for the 22 pole machine. These machines will have the same stator MMF harmonic content as for the case when all teeth are wound as listed above. As can be observed from comparing the phasor diagrams, the fundamental distribution factor for both machines increases as detailed in Table.1. This will also be the case for the parasitic fields. C) Design Optimization The main design goal was to achieve the set performance requirements with lightest possible machine. The machine split ratio is a very important design parameter in order to change the ratio of the electrical to the magnetic loading as well as having a sufficiently large inductance to limit short circuit currents. The motor will be most of the time counter-acting a background load in order to keep the spoilers stowed in. On the other hand, the most demanding operating condition on the actuator during normal operating conditions is that of holding torques at zero speed, during landing. During abnormal operation, an emergency descent would require a high torque at zero speed to hold the actuation surface fully deployed as described in section III. This pushes the design to minimize copper loss while heavily loading the magnetic material, within the limits of still achieving the required inductance and torque

Fig. 1. 24 slot 20 pole motor geometry

a)24 slot 20 pole all teeth wound

b)24 slot 22 pole all teeth wound

c)24 slot 20 pole alternate teeth wound

d)24 slot 22 pole alternate teeth wound

Fig. 2. Coil EMF phasor diagram

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kt (Nm/a)

linearity. The figure below shows the variation of the copper loss against stator internal diameter for fixed stator outer dimensions, a fixed inner rotor diameter and the motor producing maximum required torque.

2.75 2.7 2.65 2.6 2.55 2.5 2.45 2.4 2.35 2.3 2.25 5 10 15 20 25 30 rms phase current

2422_dl 2420_dl 2420_sl

35

Fig.5. Torque constant for the three machines

140 120 iron loss (W)

Fig. 3. copper loss(W) plotted as a function of stator internal diameter at maximum torque requirement V. PERFORMANCE COMPARISON

100 80 60 40 20 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 rms phase current 2422_dl 2420_dl 2420_sl

In this section simulation results for the machines described above will be compared in an effort to verify the expected designed performance and investigate further the losses due to the high stator MMF harmonics. The electrical machines are currently being manufactured and are due to be tested in the coming days. FE results will be presented for the time being with the full results being presented in following publications. Fig. 4. shows the phase back emf of the 22 pole motor at no load. Fig. 5. shows the torque constant variation with load for three machine designs. As expected the torque constant for all machines reduces with load due to magnetic saturation as a result of the armature reaction. Comparing the two 20 pole machine designs: As expected the torque produced by the alternate tooth wound motor (referred in figure as single layer (sl) ) produces a higher torque per amp at low load levels due to the higher winding factor when compared to the all teeth wound design (dl) as detailed in Table. 1. However, as loading goes up, this advantage is lost as it saturates earlier due to the higher parasitic fluxes and the different machine magnetic loading as shown in Fig. 7.

Fig.6. Iron loss variation with load at rated speed Figure 6 shows the iron loss variation with phase current for the three machines at rated speed. These losses are estimated based on the magnetic flux density distribution and the loss data for the magnetic steel used. VI. FAULT TOLERANCE The degree of fault tolerance the electrical machine is required to achieve depends on the actuator system configuration and on the number of redundant backups. In order to have a modular system, each phase has to be supplied from an independent converter thus having electrically isolated phases. The foreseeable machine related fault scenarios can either winding open circuit faults, in the winding itself or in the converter. The other type of fault which is more difficult to control and manage is a winding short circuit fault, either at the machine terminals or an inter-turn fault shorting part of the winding. The short circuit current and the braking torque in case of a terminal short circuit fault can be limited by having a high enough phase inductance. In case of an iner-turn fault the short circuit current is likely to reach high values as it is merely limited by the resistance of the shorted turns especially with a few turns being shorted. This current can be limited to rated value by shorting the phase terminals as explained in [4]. Inter turn shorts can be detected by the controller as demonstrated in [5]. A) Magnetic Decoupled Windings In order to have a controllable machine after a short-circuit fault it is essential to be able to limit the short circuit current to

Fig.4. No-Load Back EMF for 22 pole motor

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an acceptable level and ensure that it does not magnetically couple the other phases so as to allow full control of the remaining phase currents. Fig. 7. shows the magnetic flux distribution for the three machines when only one phase is excited. One can note that there is minimal flux linking the other non-excited phases. One can however spot the differences in the magnetic flux path for the three machines. The flux distribution in the alternate teeth wound motor is seen to have a return path through the back-iron section extending a whole quarter of the stator back iron. Although the magnetic coupling, considering linear iron is minimal, one can expect a reasonable cross coupling in a non linear machine. Fig. 8 shows the back-emf across the three phases when only phase c excited. The magnetic decoupling is evident.

Fig.8. Back Emf with one phase excitation B) Open Circuit Faults A machine can operate with an open circuit fault as long as a positive sequence stator field synchronous with the air gap flux is maintained. This can be achieved with at least two separately controlled phase windings, even if not spatially symmetrically distributed. In a three phase machine with a faulted phase this can be achieved by controlling the remaining healthy phase currents to shift by /6 away from the faulted phase as illustrated in Fig. 9. Fig. 10. and Fig. 11. show the torque produced before and after an open circuit fault occurs with the a 20 pole single and alternate teeth wound motor respectively. If the machines are to be designed to carry on operating with the faulted phase they have to be rated accordingly. In such a case a higher phase number than three is likely to be more advantageous. In the system considered here the machine has only to operate in fault tolerant mode for the time to get a back up system into operation. In order to achieve the same torque after a phase open circuit, the phase currents have to increase by 1.73 with the stator copper loss doubling in value as shown in Fig.9. Although the fundamental torque is maintained after an open circuit phase fault, a torque ripple component at twice the fundamental excitation frequency is present. This is due to the interaction between the fundamental current and the third harmonic air gap flux density due to iron saturation. It can be noted that the torque ripple for the alternate teeth wound motor is larger due to higher saturation.

a) 24 slot 20 pole - alternate teeth wound

b) 24 slot 20 pole - all teeth wound

c) 24 slot 22 pole all teeth wound Fig. 7. Resulting flux distribution due to one phase excitation

Fig.9. Phase currents before and after a phase open circuit fault

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Fig. 10. Torque produced by the 20 pole machine with all teeth wound before and after one phase is open circuited.

Fig. 13. Short circuit currents with a balanced three phase terminal short circuit for the 22 pole motor. VII. CONCLUSIONS The design challenges for having an EMA directly driven by an electrical machine without an intermediate gearbox were highlighted. A mid spoiler actuator using a directly driven EMA is currently being developed. It is shown that a directly driven EMA improves reliability, reduces weight and provides a more compact system. A high degree of fault tolerance can be achieved through proper machine design and by adopting a suitable post fault control strategy.

Fig. 11. Torque produced by the 20 pole machine with alternate teeth wound before and after one phase is open circuited. C) Terminal Short Circuit Faults Short circuit faults are limited by having a high phase inductance. In the case of a surface mount machine, this is mainly slot leakage inductance. Having deep slots with a large bridge depth enables us to reach the required inductance value. Fig 12. and 13. show the braking torque and short circuit current after a symmetric phase short circuit with the machine running at rated speed. All the three machines respond similarly to a short circuit fault as their phase impedance is nearly identical.

Concentrated wound machines offer numerous advantages in terms of torque density and fault tolerant capabilities and are shown to be a suitable choice for EMAs. Alternate teeth windings offer physical separation between phases which is indispensable for a fault tolerant machine. These types of machine however suffer from increased losses due to higher stator winding harmonics and perform worse than the machines with all teeth wound when the machines are heavily loaded or when operating with phase faults. REFERENCES
[1] Patrick W Wheeler, Lee Empringham, Maurice Apap, Liliana de Lilo, J. C. Clare, K. J. Bradley. A Matrix Converter Motor Drive for an Aircraft Actuation System in: IEEE EPE2003, 2003,pp 472~381. [2] A.S. Goodman, K.J. Bradley, P.W. Wheeler. Evaluation of the Single Sided Matrix Converter Driven Switched Reluctance Motor in: the 39th IEEE IAS Conference, 2004 [3] Mecrow, B.C.; Jack, A.G.; Atkinson, D.J.; Green, S.R.; Atkinson, G.J.; King, A.; Green, B.; Design and testing of a four-phase fault-tolerant permanent-magnet machine for an engine fuel pump Energy Conversion, IEEE Transactions on Volume 19, Issue 4, Dec. 2004 Page(s):671 - 678 [4] Haylock, J.A.; Mecrow, B.C.; Jack, A.G.; Atkinson, D.J.; Operation of fault tolerant machines with winding failures; Energy Conversion, IEEE Transactions on Volume 14, Issue 4, Dec. 1999 Page(s):1490 - 1495 [5] Gerada, C.; Bradley, K.J.; Sumner, M.; Wheeler, P.; Pickering, S.; Clare, J.; Whitley, C.; Towers, G.; The implications of winding faults in induction motor drives; Industry Applications Conference, 2004. 39th IAS Annual Meeting. Conference Record of the 2004 IEEE Volume 4, 3-7 Oct. 2004 Page(s):2506 - 2513 vol.4

Fig. 12. Braking Torque with a terminal short circuit fault at rated speed for the 22 pole motor

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