Project Sample

The following is a sample of projects E-Motors Consulting has been involved with:

Expert witness with deposition and court experience:

  • Estate of Brock Bland v. Bombardier Recreational Products, Inc. – On going, with deposition (2024).
  • ZF v. Stoneridge Control Devices, Inc., IPR: 2022-2023, with deposition.
  • Ocado v. Autostore Technlogy AS, European Patent office, 2021.
  • Crandall Technologies LLC v. Greatcall, Inc., infringement case, 2019.
  • MPC Inc. v. Standex Electronics Inc., warranty dispute, 2019.
  • Patent litigation case concerning electric motors for automotive applications, 2018.
  • AM General, LLC v. UUSI, LLC, 4 IPR cases:  2016-2017, with deposition.
  • SD3, LLC v. US PTO:  2016, with deposition and testimony at trial (US District Court).

Motors:  Can ferrite magnets be substituted for rare earth?

One of the biggest issues facing electric machine technology is the cost and availability of rare earth as a source material for magnets.  Because the supply comes largely from a single country, some see a vulnerability in case of global disturbances.  Are there alternatives, though?  E-Motors, in partnership with Marquette University (Prof. EL-Refaie and Dr. Ma), did investigate the issue.  The conclusions, detailed in a paper published in the Transactions on Industry Applications (2020), indicate that there is a window of opportunity.  The idea is to use mostly ferrite (by volume), assisted with some rare earth, such that in total the machine enjoys a strong magnetic field, but at a lower cost than with rare earth magnets only, at current prices at least.  Later on, E-Motors partnered with Niron Magnetics to investigate Niron’s novel Iron-Nitride magnets, both by themselves and also in combination with some rare-earth magnets (US 12,231,003).

Proposed machine topology with reduced rare earth content

Automotive Systems:

  • Evaluation of electrical drive systems for hybrid vehicle applications
  • Design evaluation including sizing, optimization, efficiency maps, thermal limit, demagnetization studies (in particular, minimizing the heavy rare-earth content)
  • Images below from use of MotorCAD from Ansys Motor-CAD.
Exemplary interior permanent-magnet motor – One pole shown
Analysis of potential magnet demagnetization, critical to minimize heavy rare-earth content – Calculated with MotorCAD software
Efficiency map calculations (results from MotorCAD analysis)

Project management:

E-Motors provided project management for a start-up working on small hydro generation. There are many smaller and medium waterways with power generating potential, over 65 GW available in the US alone (see reports from ORNL and Colorado State University). The team, with partners E-Motors, Cadens, LLC, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), and others, has identified additive manufacturing (3D printing) as a promising avenue for reducing cost. Experimental 3-D printed turbines were built and tested on a river dam in Sullivan, WI, with small business grants from the US Dept.artment of Energy. E-Motors has also developed a rim generator concept specially devised for integration with the turbine runner and conveyance stack.

Actuators:

Fast electromagnetic actuation for DC circuit breakers. The emergence (or re-emergence) of DC for power distribution has made it necessary to develop quick-acting DC circuit breakers. A key enabler is a fast electromagnetic actuator. E-Motors, after initially working with North Carolina State University on the subject, has developed a novel theory for repulsion-type actuators with Eaton Corp. These actuators are capable of traveling at the targeted 1mm / 0.5 ms, See papers in the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications (2023 with Eaton, and 2017 and 2016 with North Carolina State). The latter received an IAS Transactions Best Paper award.