Electrical Resistivity of Additively Manufactured Silicon Steel for Electrical Machine Fabrication

Abstract

Additive manufacturing, commonly labeled as 3D printing is an essential component of the next industrial revolution, enabling both unprecedented fabrication freedom and streamlined production and logistics. Traditionally, the electrical machine cores are stacked from varnished soft magnetic laminations, which deliver reduced eddy and hysteresis losses during machine operation. Presently, dedicated metal printing platforms can produce industrial grade homomaterial metal components, promoting the fabrication of machines with highly complex topologies, but also increasing the eddy current induced in these components, due to lack of laminated structure. In this paper, we present experimental resistivity measurement results of 3% and 6.5% silicon content steel fabricated with selective laser melting.

AC Magnetic Loss Reduction of SLM Processed Fe-Si for Additive Manufacturing of Electrical Machines

“…Typical resistivity values for 3% and 6% silicon steels are 47 [15] and 82 [29] µΩ•cm, respectively, showing a nearly linear relationship between resistivity and silicon content over the range of 3-8 wt% [28], which corresponds to 54 µΩ•cm for 3.7% silicon content steel. Although the influence of the build orientation [24] on the material resistivity was not investigated in this study for the Fe-Si alloy, homogeneous material resistivity, invariant from the build orientation, has mostly been shown for Cu [27] and AlSi 10 Mg [28] alloys after furnace annealing.…”

“…The electrical resistivity of the printed material was evaluated with the four-probe Kelvin sensing method [24]. The test schematic of the electrical measurements setup is shown in Figure 4c.…”

Robust Design Optimization and Emerging Technologies for Electrical Machines: Challenges and Open Problems

“…From the material point of view, there is much work going on in the field of 3D printed materials. With magnetic materials, the main aim of most research work is to achieve material characteristics equal to or better than conventional materials [240][241][242][243]. From the magnetic point of view, there are two main things that need to be focused on: the material hysteresis loop and material conductivity, resulting in eddy current losses.…”