Dr. Lequesne was awarded his 56th patent
Dr. Lequesne received a patent (US 12,231,003) for work performed for Niron Magnetics. Niron is developing a new class of powerful magnets, and the patent provides design insights for using a combination of Niron and rare-earth magnets. This work built on previous work done with Marquette University on combining inexpensive ferrite magnets with rare-earth magnets. This work is all the more important in a time of turbulent magnet markets.
Dr. Lequesne invited as one of two “luminaries” at IEEE Energy Conversion Conference and Exhibition (ECCE)
The ECCE conference recently started a luminary program, where two individuals with a storied career are invited to speak of their work and experience. ECCE2025 will take place in Philadelphie, PA, in October.
Dr. Lequesne awarded two patents on electric machine design
One challenge for in-wheel traction motors for transportation is the need for a small airgap between the motor rotor and stator, which is difficult to maintain when the wheel is subjected to a sudden jolt. These two patents ( US 11,424,652) and US 11,923,755) introduce an innovative self-supporting lubricated airgap, which address this problem by making the airgap resilient to relative movement of the rotor and stator.
Bruno’s paper published in IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications
The paper presents an innovative approach to analyzing and designing Thomson-coil actuators (also called repulsion-coil actuators), a form of electromagnetic device whereby a solid disk is repelled by a current spike is an adjoining coil. Such coils are favored for DC circuit breakers, for which very fast actuation is critical. DC circuit breakers are needed to better protect from malfunctions in DC networks as prevalent in renewable energy systems and data centers. B. Lequesne, T. Holp, S. Schmalz, M. Slepian, H. Wang, “Frequency-domain analysis and design of Thomson-coil actuators,” IEEE Trans. on IA, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 1765-1774.