Research Information System
47th Annual Conference of the IEEE-Industrial-Electronics-Society (IECON), ELECTR NETWORK, 13 - 16 October 2021
Hybrid 3-phase stepper motors remain the preferred solution for many applications in robotics and aerospace industries as they can provide accurate position and speed control in open loop systems. On the other hand, they are rarely used in oil and gas industry. In this paper, potential use of this motor technology to oil and gas industry specifically downhole applications is investigated. For this purpose, design and analyses of a 3-phase hybrid stepper motor are carried out with the detailed investigation on the impact of airgap on the motor performance. The difficulty of the design comes from extremely large L/D ratio of the stepper motor due to the application requirements. Fundamental design-based equations are used for the initial design of the motor and detailed 3D finite element analysis (FEA) models are carried out to check the motor performance. Finally, modelling and design of two 3-phase hybrid stepper motors with different airgaps are presented to illustrate the effect of the airgap length on motor performance.