PM Brushless Motor for Aileron/Spoiler system of a Regional Aircraft

Abstract— The integration of electromechanical actuators in the aircraft systems is one of the major key-point of the aerospace industry, thanks to their advantages, such us minor weight and major efficiency: this trend is called “More-Electric Aircraft”.
In this paper, a PM brushless motor has been designed and analyzed to integrate in an electromechanical actuator in a regional aircraft to control aileron/spoiler surface.
As first step, an accurate selection of the active material has been made in order to have the best compromise between envelope and performance. Then, an optimization of the electromagnetic design has been performed in order to maximize the torque-to-current ratio at continuous operation.
A surface permanent magnets machine with concentrated windings has been chosen and the proposed motor has the magnets directly glued on the surface of the steel nut. Moreover, in order to improve the power density, the high-performance CoFe electrical steel has been selected.
Accurate Finite Element analysis and thermal verification have been carried out to ensure that the sized motor could cover the overall range of required performance avoiding overtemperature during the operation.