Simulation of acoustic radiation of an AC servo drive

Abstract

Purpose

Nowadays, the determination of the acoustic radiation of electric machines is of particular interest, because legal regulations restrict the maximum audible noise radiated by technical devices such as electrical machinery. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the electromagnetic excited structure‐borne sound and air‐borne noise of an AC servo drive.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents the required steps for the multiphysics acoustic simulation of electrical machines to evaluate its noise behaviour. This numerical approach starts with the electromagnetic force‐wave simulation. The computation by a structure dynamic model determines the deformation of the mechanical structure due to the force‐waves. The final step of the simulation approach consists of the computation of the acoustic radiation.

Findings

For the electromagnetic simulation analytical and numerical methods are combined to gain some acceleration of the entire multiphysics simulation approach. This combination offers additionally a detailed understanding of the noise generation mechanism in electrical machines.

Originality/value

Particular attention is paid to the structural‐dynamic model. Modelling of microstructures, such as the laminated iron core or insulated coils, is memory and computational expensive. A systematic material homogenisation technique, based on experimental‐ and numerical modal analyses, yields a higher accuracy at lower computational costs when compared to standard numerical approaches. The presented multiphysics simulation is validated by measurements. The methods are presented by means of a case study.

Citation

Franck, D., van der Giet, M. and Hameyer, K. (2010), "Simulation of acoustic radiation of an AC servo drive", COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 1060-1069. https://doi.org/10.1108/03321641011044479