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All
about motors
Howard
Lovatt
CSIRO Industrial Physics
Who
Am I
Dr. Howard Lovatt, Motor Designer, CSIRO Industrial Physics,
Sydney, Australia
Background
CSIRO (www.csiro.au)
is largely government funded and is government owned. We do
research in most areas of science; the major exceptions are
medical and nuclear. The area I work in is primarily funded
from contracts with industry (which as I said isn't the norm
in CSIRO). We act as consultants to industry designing special
motors like the one for a new improved washing machine (http://www.csiro.au/csiro/content/standard/ps13d,,.html)
and the one used in many of the solar-powered racing cars
(http://www.csiro.au/csiro/content/standard/psz7,,.html).
What I Did on April 12
I was designing a motor for a customer. The
motor needed to be small and light because it will be used
in an aerospace application. It also had to be able to run
at high speed (up to 50,000 rpm) as part of the specification.
The photo shows a screen shot I took as I was doing the design;
it shows the flux density in the centre cross section of the
motor for one of my trial designs. Designing this particular
motor is challenging because the specifications are difficult
to meet and because it is a switched reluctance motor (http://www.fleadh.co.uk/srm.htm).
Switched reluctance motors are one of the harder types of
motors to design because they saturate the steel and because
they do not have sinusoidally varying properties. But we wanted
to use one because they're ideal for high speed operation.
Designing this motor will take me about two to three weeks
solid work.
Why I Got Into Science
I was always interested in science: one of my early
childhood memories is of the moon landings. My father
bought me a book on building your own radio when I was about
9, and I've been hooked on science ever since I got that radio
to work.
How I Got Where I Am
I am English and came to Australia in 1992 to work for CSIRO
and quickly decided that Australia was a great place to live
and work. If I didn't have a science background, I don't think
such opportunities would have presented themselves; so science
has certainly opened some doors for me.
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