Additive Manufacturing of a lightweight rotor for a permanent magnet synchronous machine

Additive Manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is a relatively new technology which enables the toolless production of components and entire assemblies directly from a CAD file. Today, the technology is still not widely used in industrial production. It is mainly limited to special applications, although it shows great potential. In this paper, first approaches are shown to apply AM to the production of rotors for permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSM). The possibilities of a lightweight design with a low moment of inertia as well as the influence on the magnetic anisotropy for an improved sensorless control of PMSM are pointed out. The results clearly demonstrate the great potential of additive manufacturing in electrical engineering applications.