Analytical modeling of the multi-physical magnetic-thermal coupling in the conceptual design phase of a mechatronic system

Overview & Synopsis

During the design phase, the different engineering teams make multiple FE simulations dealing with various physical behaviours in order to ensure both verification and validation.However, the unsatisfactory results lead to late changes and hence to long iterations and increasing costs.In order to tackle this problem, it is essential to take into account the geometrical and multi-physical constraints in the complex system architecture since the conceptual design phase.In fact, a process called SAMOS is developed aiming at selecting the most adequate 3D multi-physical architecture while ensuring an efficient collaboration between the engineering teams. Moreover, this framework is based on two SysML extensions which allow the enrichment of the architecture with geometrical and multi-physical data.Furthermore, this thesis focuses on magnetic constraints and magnetic-thermal coupling.Since this phase does not support long FE simulations, the analytical models based on simplified geometries are sufficient to provide satisfactory approximate results.In this context, different analytical models are studied and validated through FE simulations and measures for several cases such as NdFeB permanent magnets. Indeed, the temperature rise does not only decrease the remanent flux density but is able also to cause irreversible losses. In fact, once we go back to the initial temperature, the characteristics of the magnet are modified. The different factors impacting the demagnetization process are discussed.Besides, the temperature impact on brushless motors’ performances is studied since this device represents a complex mechatronic system.