IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 46, NO.

11, NOVEMBER 2010

3939

Optimum Design of Single-Sided Linear Induction Motors for Improved Motor Performance
Amir Zare Bazghaleh, Mohammad Reza Naghashan, and Mohammad Reza Meshkatoddini
Power and Water University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
Linear induction motors (LIMs) are the best solution to the problem of producing linear motion directly, but the low efciency, low power factor, and longitudinal end effect (LEE) are their major problems. These problems become more baneful in high-power and high-speed applications. For example, in the transport industry, they lead to high energy consumption, high input current that occupies transmission line capacity, and phase unbalance. Thus, it is necessary to overcome these problems; furthermore, the decrease in motor weight results in lower cost and better performance of linear induction motors. In this paper, rst we present an accurate equivalent circuit model (ECM). Then, we introduce a new factor, lee , which can illustrate the end effect intensity in the LIM. At the next stage, we investigate the inuence of motor design parameters on the efciency, power factor, and end effect intensity. Then we develop several different muliobjective functions, which will be used to improve efciency, power factor, end effect intensity, and motor weight. This procedure will be done by analytic method and by using the particle swarm optimization technique. Results will show the accuracy of the equivalent circuit model and the improvement of objective functions at the end of the optimization procedure. Two-dimensional nite-element analysis evaluates the results from the ECM. Index TermsEfciency, longitudinal end effect, motor weight, power factor.

I. INTRODUCTION

OWADAYS, linear induction motors (LIMs) have gained more interest in industries which need to produce linear motion, especially in medium and high-speed transportation [1], [2]. The main advantage of LIMs is producing linear motion directly, without any rotary to linear motion converters. Thus, absence of mechanical converters results in better performance of the motor [3]. LIMs are used in several different forms such as tubular linear induction motor (TLIM), double-sided linear induction motor (DLIM), and single-sided linear induction motor (SLIM) [4], [5]. In some applications of SLIMs, the secondary is cage-type or wounded [6]. But by using a high conducting plate backed by a ferromagnetic material (back iron), instead of cage or wounded type of secondary, the structure of SLIM will be more and more simplied. This is because of wide use of SLIM. Several different methods have been presented for analysis of LIMs, such as equivalent circuit model (ECM), 1-D and 2-D electromagnetic eld analysis, and numerical methods including nite-element and nite-difference methods [7][12]. The longitudinal end effect (LEE) in LIMs has been so far studied in several researches, in which different purposes have been considered. N. Fujii and T. Harada have studied the LEE as in SLIM with ladder type secondary. They presented a factor to measure the LEE intensity [13]. Where in which is passing duration of primary core at a secondary point and half-period of slip frequency. In another paper the LEE has been
Manuscript received February 08, 2010; revised May 18, 2010; accepted June 22, 2010. Date of publication August 03, 2010; date of current version October 20, 2010. Corresponding author: A. Zare Bazghaleh (e-mail: amir.zare bazghaleh27@gmail.com). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TMAG.2010.2062528

investigated completely by using of FEM [14]. This phenomenon is baneful and affects the output of motor thus it is a good idea to compensate this phenomenon in LIMs [15]. In one research, some of the effective design parameters on LEE intensity are introduced by help of 1-D electromagnetic eld analysis [16]. Optimum design of LIMs has been so far studied in several researches, in which different objective functions have been considered. The starting force has been maximized under constant start current [17]. D. Im has maximized the ratio of starting force and weight of the motor at constant voltage using nite-element and neural network methods [18]. In another research, the propulsion force (Pro. Force) has been maximized under constant velocity using linear programming [19]. Optimum design of LIMs has been considered in many other researches. Design optimization of LIMs for improved efciency and power factor has been considered in [20], which the optimization procedure has been done using conventional equivalent circuit of rotary induction motor, and some of important phenomena of SLIMs such as LEE and saturation effect have been ignored. Thus, results from analytical method by the way cannot be true in medium and high speed application. On the other hand this method may cause to more intensive phase unbalance. In this paper, rst a fast accurate ECM is introduced which include all of the important phenomena in SLIM such as LEE, , is saturation effect and edge effect. Then a new factor, introduced by help of ECM to measure the LEE intensity. At the next stage the effective design parameters on the efciency, power factor, and LEE intensity are described by help of the ECM. But the main purpose of this paper is to have the best design for a SLIM. In order to achieve the best design to improve efciency and power factor, reduction of LEE intensity and minimization of motor weight in medium and high speed, it is to try to maximize several different objective functions and to compare them. This optimization procedure is done via particle swarm optimization (PSO) method. Finally, the 2-D time

0018-9464/$26.00 2010 IEEE

3940

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 46, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2010

Thus, the magnetizing current reduces as follows: (4) The reduction in the magnetizing current will be accounted in ECM by modifying the magnetizing inductance as follows: (5) But that will not be all. Because, when induced eddy current circulates in secondary plates, it causes ohmic loss. This loss will be produced by . The effective value of eddy current over the motor length can be evaluated as

Fig. 1. Eddy-current generation at the entry and exit rail.

(6)
Fig. 2. ECM of SLIM by neglecting LEE.

stepping FEM analysis is used to evaluate the optimum design and accuracy of the presented ECM. II. ECM OF SLIM CONSIDERS SPECIFIC PHENOMENA The relative motion between short primary and long-secondary causes the LEE. This effect leads to braking force and additional loss that are produced by eddy currents at the entry and exit rail as it can be seen in Fig. 1 [21]. As it can be seen in Fig. 2, by neglecting LEE, the ECM of SLIM comes to ECM of rotary induction motor (RIM) [2]. One of the best ECMs that included LEE is the ECM suggested by Duncan [22]. In this section, Duncans ECM has been described and modied to achieve the suitable ECM, for a fast accurate study on SLIM. The rise and decay of secondary eddy current are controlled and total by the secondary leakage time constant , respectively. Noting that secondary time constant the entry eddy current caused by entry end effect decays with the time constant , the average value of entry eddy current over the motor length is given by (1) is the time that the motor needs to overpass a point. where over the The motor can transverse a distance equal to the time duration of . Thus, the motor length can be normalized by such that [22] (2) By this way, the normalized motor length depends on velocity. Using (2), (1) becomes (3)

Therefore, the value of ohmic loss due to entry eddy current can be obtained by (7) The total eddy current in the secondary placed under air gap can be obtained from (3), as . To satisfy the steady-state condition in the air gap, the eddy current must be vanished at exit rail during the time . Therefore, the ohmic loss caused by exit eddy current may be evaluated by (8) Thus, from (7) and (8), the total ohmic loss due to eddy current in the secondary will be (9) As it can be seen in (9), this ohmic power loss can be represented by a resistor which is connected in series to the magnetizing inductance. As it can be seen in Fig. 3, the difference between Duncan model and conventional equivalent circuit of RIM is the change in the magnetizing branch due to the LEE [2]. In Duncan model The ECM parameters are obtained by the standard open and short circuit tests, but, because of the specic phenomena in LIMs, the ECM parameters change with slip and cannot be obtained by standard tests. These parameters can be calculated by eld analysis as follows [23][25]: (10) (11) (12) (13) (14)

ZARE BAZGHALEH et al.: OPTIMUM DESIGN OF SINGLE-SIDED LINEAR INDUCTION MOTORS

3941

Fig. 3. ECM suggested by Duncan. Fig. 4. End effect factor (

) versus motor speed.

The secondary core in SLIMs is made of solid iron or steel, so, saturation occurs in some operation conditions. In order to , has take this effect into account, the saturation coefcient, been dened and causes to increase in air gap length (15)

(24)

(25) , is The saturation coefcient for the secondary back iron, the ratio of back iron reluctance to the sum of conductor and the air gap reluctance. Considering the average length of solid back and the depth of eld penetration in the iron ux path to be iron as , the saturation factor takes the form [2]: (16) (17) The average permeability of back iron can be computed during an iterative procedure [21]. In order to obtain this goal rst it is necessary to calculate the approximate value of ux density in the air gap [2]. (18) (19) Assuming an exponential form for the eld distribution in the back iron, the ux density at the surface of the back iron takes the form [2]: (20) The secondary of SLIMs has no specic paths for induced currents. The phenomenon causes an increase in equivalent secondary resistance. This effect is known as the transverse edge effect and should be considered by suitable coefcients [2] (21) (22) A realistic air gap ux density lower than 0.4 T, leads to moderate ux densities in the primary core iron, and thus core losses can be neglected and the propulsion force, the power factor, and the efciency can be obtained from [21]: (23) The end effect factor, Fig. 4. , versus motor speed is shown in

III. END EFFECT FACTOR Two ECMs are described in last section. The rst one (Fig. 2) does not consider LEE but the second one (Fig. 3) considers the additional loss in the entry and exit rail and reduction of force caused by LEE. Therefore, the air gap power, the active power passes through the air gap, which is calculated by the rst , is for a SLIM which has no ECM at a constant current, LEE, but the air gap power which is calculated by the second , contains the additional loss and force reduction ECM, caused by LEE. Thus, LEE intensity, , can be measured by the following equation: (26)

IV. EFFECTIVE DESIGN PARAMETERS In order to obtain optimum design of SLIMs, to improve efciency, power factor, and LEE, the effective design parameters should be known. Some of these parameters are not dened in other researches. The air gap length (AGL) and conductive plate thickness (CPT) have important effects on motor performance. Figs. 5, 6, and 7 show the variation of efciency, power factor, and , respectively with AGL and CPT value. LEE intensity A reduction in the AGL increases the efciency, power factor, and LEE intensity. Also, an increase in the CPT value increases the efciency, power factor, and LEE intensity. Frequency affects the efciency, power factor, and LEE intensity obviously. On the other hand, change in frequency at constant speed leads to the change on other design parameters such as pole pitch or slip, back iron thickness, depth of eld penetration, and time constants of secondary. Changing design

3942

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 46, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2010

Fig. 5. Efciency versus CPT and AGL.

Fig. 9. Power factor versus frequency and DCD.

Fig. 6. Power factor versus CPT and AGL.

Fig. 10. LEE intensity (

) versus frequency and DCD.

Fig. 7. LEE intensity (

) versus AGL and CPT.

Fig. 11. Efciency versus NSPP and NP.

Fig. 8. Efciency versus frequency and DCD.

current density (DCD) causes to the change in cross-sectional area of slots and copper volume in the windings, therefore it affects the efciency and power factor, but it has no sensible effect on the LEE intensity, because in this simulation changing DCD only changes slot depth. Figs. 8, 9, and 10 show the changes of with the two efciency, power factor, and LEE intensity important design parameters. As the number of poles (NP) is increased, the LEE intensity is decreased. But in some conditions this may cause larger copper

losses in windings and thus lower efciency, but an increase in the NP increases the power factor. The change of efciency, related to the change in power factor, and LEE intensity NP and number of slots per pole per phase (NSPP) can be seen in Figs. 11, 12, and 13, respectively. It is seen that NSPP has no sensible effect on motor performance, but larger NSPP can moderate the phases unbalance due to LEE. Slip rate determines the depth of eld penetration and affects the secondary equivalent circuit, thus, it is effective on the efciency and power factor. Also, at constant frequency to have a particular speed, slip reduction causes pole pitch reduction and it decreases the secondary time constant which leads to a more intensive end effect. The primary width to pole pitch ratio (PWPP) affects the ux density and the propulsion force (pro. force). Thus, it can affect the efciency, power factor, and LEE intensity. Inuences of these parameters on the motor performance are shown in Figs. 14, 15, and 16. The slot pitch to slot width ratio (SPSW) affects the leakage reactance of primary and secondary. Thus, it causes the power factor to change. On the other hand, the change of secondary

ZARE BAZGHALEH et al.: OPTIMUM DESIGN OF SINGLE-SIDED LINEAR INDUCTION MOTORS

3943

Fig. 12. Power factor versus NSPP and NP.

Fig. 16. LEE intensity (

) versus slip and PWPP.

Fig. 13. LEE intensity (

) versus NSPP and NP.

Fig. 17. Efciency versus CRAR and SPSW.

Fig. 14. Efciency versus slip and PWPP.

Fig. 18. Power factor versus SPSW and CRAR.

Fig. 15. Power factor versus slip and PWPP.

Fig. 19. LEE intensity (

) versus SPSW and CRAR.

time constant value leads to change in the amplitude of LEE and motor output. The conducting plate resistivity to the aluminum resistivity ratio (CRAR), affects the output force and power factor, too. Variation of end effect intensity, with the secondary conducting plate resistivity, is justiable by the time constant of secondary, too. A conducting plate with larger resistivity caused to smaller secondary time constant. It leads to a more intensive

end effect. The change of efciency, power factor, and LEE inwith CRAR and SPSW are shown in Figs. 17, 18, tensity and 19, respectively. V. OPTIMUM DESIGN OF SLIM Some of the design parameters of SLIMs are selected as optimum design variables and some constraints are applied to

3944

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 46, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2010

TABLE I DESIGN VARIABLES OF OPTIMIZATION PROBLEM

TABLE II BEST INITIAL GUESSES

TABLE III OPTIMIZED MOTORS

Fig. 20. Back iron magnetization curve.

Fig. 21. Flowchart of particle swarm optimization.

them. The design variables and their constraints are implied in Table I. The optimization has been done in constant current of 200 A, and the nominal frequency, mechanical velocity, and propulsion 25 N, respectively. The force are 60 Hz, 20 m/s, and 565 number of poles is chosen four and number of slots per pole per phase is xed to two and one-layer winding is used. The magnetization curve for the secondary back iron is shown in Fig. 20. To obtain optimum design parameters, the objective function is dened as (27)

The optimization is done in four stages by PSO method. In , in the objective functhe rst stage, tion, and thus optimization improved the efciency and power , in the obfactor. In the second stage, by jective function, has been tried to maximize the efciency and minimize the motor weight and LEE intensity. In the third stage, , and the objective function attempted to maximize efciency and minimize LEE intensity. At last, in the . fourth stage, In PSO method each particle knows the best situation of itself, , as well as the best situation of all particles of the group, . Thus, it modies its velocity and direction to obtain the best situation [26]. The owchart of this procedure is shown in Fig. 21. The objective functions at the end of optimization will be better than its counterpart in initial guesses. The population size (number of guesses) is chosen to 25, and the rst value of speed for each guess satises the constraints. Tables II and III show the best initial guess and optimum de, sign of SLIM in four stages. In the rst stage ( ), the efciency has been reduced, the power factor has been improved, the motor weight increased, and LEE in, tensity has been decreased. In the second stage ( ), only the motor weight has sensible change comparing

ZARE BAZGHALEH et al.: OPTIMUM DESIGN OF SINGLE-SIDED LINEAR INDUCTION MOTORS

3945

TABLE IV COMPARISON BETWEEN ECM AND FEM FOR A CASE STUDY MOTOR

Fig. 23. Flux lines in the SLIM.

Fig. 24. Flux density distribution in the air gap. Fig. 22. Flux density distribution in SLIM.

to the best initial guess. In the third stage ( , ), the efciency and power factor are decreased, but the motor weight and the LEE intensity are decreased very well. In , the efciency has no the fourth stage sensible change, but the power factor and LEE intensity have been improved and the motor weight is decreased. The results show that considering LEE and motor weight is more important than considering power factor in the optimization procedure. Because considering power factor in the optimization may increase the ohmic loss in the winding. Thus, the propulsion force to motor weight ratio will decrease, but considering motor weight and LEE will increase the propulsion force to motor weight ratio. Improving LEE intensity can improve the phases unbalance, too. Also, the power factor can be compensated by help of proper capacitors not by changing design parameters. VI. VALIDATION STAGE The optimization procedure is carried out based on a new equivalent circuit model. Therefore, validity of the optimum design mainly depends on the accuracy of the circuit model. Thus,

2-D FEM is used to evaluate the results for a case study machine. Table IV shows the comparison of results from ECM (neglecting end connections) and FEM. It can be seen that ECM results are close enough to the FEM results. Fig. 22 shows the ux density distribution in different parts of the motor. As the primary of the SLIM moves to right, the ux-density is reduced in the front of SLIM and is reected behind it. Fig. 23 shows the ux lines in the motor. It can be seen that ux lines in the behind of primary are denser than the front due to primary movement. Fig. 24 shows the ux density distribution only in the air gap and primary slots. It can be seen that the ux density of air gap is around 0.2 T in the most area of air gap. It has been explained on Figs. 22 and 23 that there is not a symmetric magnetic condition in SLIM. This is because of asymmetric structure of the motor, movement of short primary on long secondary and thereby end effect. Thus, phase current will be unbalanced. Fig. 25 shows the comparison of phase current of two different motors. It can be seen that the phase unbal, is more intenance in the motor with larger LEE factor, , presented in this sive. This implies validity of LEE factor, paper.

3946

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 46, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2010

Leakage factor. End connection length. Motor length. Magnetizing inductance. Secondary leakage inductance. Number of phases. Number of conductors per slot.
Fig. 25. Phase currents (continued lines: : ).

K = 0 2282

K = 0 3006, discontinued lines:

:

Number of turns per phase. Number of poles. Number of slots per pole per phase. Winding resistor. Secondary resistor. Slip. Mechanical speed. Stator width. Equivalent stator width. Slot width. Slot depth. Stator leakage reactance. Secondary leakage reactance. Magnetizing reactance. Conducting plate conductivity. Back iron conductivity. Copper conductivity. Function of and . and

VII. CONCLUSION The paper presents a method to optimum design of medium and high-speed SLIMs. In order to obtain this purpose, a quick equivalent circuit model was introduced. The model considered the specic phenomena in SLIMs, such as transverse edge effect and saturation effect, by means of some proper factors. The longitudinal end effect was also considered by modifying Duncans equivalent circuit model. This ECM is fast enough to be used frequently. By help of the suggested equivalent circuit, a new factor was introduced which measures longitudinal end effect intensity, clearly. For the purpose of carrying out the optimization the PSO method is employed, which is a powerful evolutionary optimization method. At the end of simulations, the results are evaluated by 2-D time-stepping FEM analysis that implies good accuracy of the suggested ECM. APPENDIX Symbols: Conducting plate thickness. Thickness of secondary ferromagnetic core. Frequency. Goodness factor. Mechanical air gap. Magnetic air gap Equivalent air gap. Design current density. Equivalent current sheet. Conducting plate coefcient. Conducting plate coefcient due to edge effect. Back iron coefcient. Back iron coefcient due to edge effect. Primary to secondary ratio. Winding factor. Carters coefcient.

Function of pitch factor. Function of pitch factor, Pole pitch. Angular frequency. Permeability of air. Permeability of back iron. REFERENCES
[1] J. F. Gieras, Linear Induction Drives. Oxford, U.K.: New Clarendon Press, 1994. [2] M. Mirsalim, A. Doroudi, and J. S. Moghani, Obtaining the operating characteristics of linear induction motors: A new approach, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 13651370, Mar. 2002. [3] J. F. Eastham, Novel synchronous machines: Linear and disc, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., vol. 137, pp. 4958, Jan. 1990. [4] S. Poitout and P. J. Costa Branco, Theoretical modeling and experimental tests of an electromagnetic uid transportation system driven by a linear induction motor, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 42, no. 9, pp. 21332151, Sep. 2006. [5] R. Haghmaram and A. Shoulaie, Transient modeling of multiparallel tubular linear induction motors, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 42, no. 6, pp. 16871693, Jun. 2006.

Depth of penetration in back iron.

ZARE BAZGHALEH et al.: OPTIMUM DESIGN OF SINGLE-SIDED LINEAR INDUCTION MOTORS

3947

[6] T. Koseki and S. Sone, Investigation of secondary slot pitches of a cage-type linear induction motor, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 29, no. 6, pp. 29442946, Nov. 1993. [7] W. Xu, G. Sun, and Y. Li, Research on performance characteristics of linear induction motor, in IEEE Industrial Electronics and Applications Conf., 2007, pp. 8688. [8] R. C. Creppe, J. A. C. Ulson, and J. F. Rodrigues, Inuence of design parameters on linear induction motor end effect, IEEE Trans. Energy Convers., vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 358362, Jun. 2008. [9] K. Idir, G. E. Dawson, and A. R. Eastham, Modeling and performance of linear induction motor with saturable primary, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 29, no. 6, pp. 11231128, Nov. 1993. [10] T. Yamaguchi, Y. Kawase, M. Yoshida, Y. Saito, and Y. Ohdachi, 3-D nite element analysis of a linear induction motor, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 37, no. 5, pp. 36683671, Sep. 2001. [11] Y. Nozaki, T. Koseki, and E. Masada, Analysis of linear induction motors for HSST and linear metro using nite difference method, in Proc. 5th Int. Symp. Linear Drives for Industry Applications, pp. 168171, LDIA2005. [12] D.-K. Kim and B.-I. Kwon, A novel equivalent circuit model of linear induction motor based on nite element analysis and its coupling with external circuits, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 42, no. 10, pp. 34073409, Oct. 2006. [13] N. Fujii and T. Harada, A new viewpoint of end effect of linear induction motor from secondary side in ladder type model, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 40404042, Sep. 1993. [14] A. H. Seluk and H. Krm, Investigation of end effects in linear induction motors by using the nite-element method, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 44, no. 7, pp. 17911795, Jul. 2008. [15] N. Fujii, T. Kayasuga, and T. Hoshi, Simple end effect compensator for linear induction motor, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 38, no. 5, pp. 32703272, Sep. 2002. [16] R. C. Creppe, J. A. C. Ulson, and J. F. Rodrigues, Inuence of design parameters on linear induction motor end effect, IEEE Energy Convers., vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 32703272, Jun. 2008. [17] D. Im, S. Park, and J. Im, Design of single-sided linear induction motor sing nite element metod and SUMT, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 17621766, Mar. 1993. [18] D. Im, S. Park, and D. Park, Optimum design of single-sided linear induction motor using the neural networks and nite element method, in Int. Joint Conf. Neural Networks, Oct. 1993, vol. 3, pp. 28112814. [19] T. Yokoi and D. Ebihara, An optimal design technique for high speed mathematical programming method, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 35963598, Sep. 1989. [20] A. H. Isfahani, B. M. Ebrahimi, and H. Lesani, Design optimization of low-speed single-sided linear induction motor for efciency and power factor, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 266272, Feb. 2008. [21] J. H. Sung and K. Nam, A new approach to vector control for a linear induction motor considering end effects, in IEEE IAS Annu. Meeting, 1999, pp. 22842289. [22] J. Duncan, Linear induction motorEquivalent circuit model, Proc. Inst. Elec. Eng., vol. 130, no. 1, pt. B, 1983.

[23] J. Faiz and H. Jafari, Accurate modeling of single-sided linear induction motor considers end effect and equivalent thickness, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 37853790, Sep. 2000. [24] I. Boldea and S. A. Nasar, Linear Electromagnetic Device. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2001. [25] R. M. Pai, I. Boldea, and S. A. Nasar, A complete equivalent circuit of a linear induction motor with sheet secondary, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 639654, Jan. 1988. [26] J. Kennedy and R. Eberhart, Particle swarm optimization, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Neural Networks, Perth, Australia, 1995, vol. IV, pp. 19421948.

Amir Zare Bazghaleh was born in Rasht, Iran, in 1983. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran, in 2006 and the M.Sc. degree in electrical power engineering (electrical machines) from the Power and Water University of Technology (PWUT), Tehran, Iran, in 2009. He joined the Islamic Azad University of Langroud, Langroud, Iran, as a lecturer in 2010. His research interests are in design and control of electrical machines, and nite-element analysis of electromagnetic devices.

Mohammad Reza Naghashan was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1952. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology in 1975, the M.Sc. degree from University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in 1986, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Dortmund, Germany, in 1996. Since 1977, he has worked in the elds of electrical machine and aging of electrical machine insulation. In 1981, he joined the Electrical Engineering Department of Power and Water University of Technology (PWUT), Iran. In 20022005, he was president of PWUT.

Mohammad Reza Meshkatoddini received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from Tehran Polytechnic University, Iran, in 1980 and 1990, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse, France, in 1996. He joined the Power and Water University of Technology (PWUT) as a lecturer in 1982. Since 1992, he has been a faculty member at PWUT. He has more than 25 years of experience in the elds of power transformers, surge arresters, electric materials, and power network transients. He has acted also as a consultant to the Iranian electrical industry. In 20052006 he was invited to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada, where he did research work as a full-time scientist. He has registered four patents and published several scientic papers. In 2006 he was ranked as the best top Iranian researcher in the eld of Electrical Engineering at the national level.