A Coupled Method for Evaluating Eddy Current Loss of NdFeB Permanent Magnets in a Saturated Core Fault Current Limiter

Eddy-current loss of NdFeB permanent magnets (PMs) is widely analyzed in PM motors. This paper proposes a coupled 2-D transient finite-element analysis (FEA) of the saturated core fault current limiter (SCFCL) and 3-D analytical model of PMs to evaluate eddy-current loss in SCFCL. The comparison between the result from coupled method and that from 3-D FEA verifies the applicability of the coupled method in analyzing eddy current loss of PMs in SCFCL. The 3-D analytical model of PM is applied to analyze the effect of segmentation on the reduction of PM's eddy-current loss. And the results show that segmentation along width has a better performance, which is also verified by 3-D FEA.