Carpenter Technology has spent over half of its 130 years of existence in perfecting the processing of soft magnetic materials with the highest induction, permeability, and lowest core losses. To serve customers at every step of the way and to realize improved motor responses using these high-performance alloys, Carpenter Electrification has continued to expand this expertise into the production of stator and rotor stacks.
Understanding that soft magnetic materials are sensitive to processing steps that can reduce their performance, our material experts and world-class facilities produce stacks through a multitude of methods tailored to our customers’ tolerances and performance requirements. “We understand that each of the process steps, including lamination cutting, insulation, bonding, and machining adversely affect magnetic performance of the alloys,” stated principal electrification engineer Patrick Walker. “As material experts, we’re applying this knowledge to stack production to isolate and eliminate these detrimental variables to provide the highest-performance stacks that meet a customer’s tolerance and cost needs, with the ability to scale up production,” he continued.
A variety of processing technologies, including booklet EDM, laser cutting, and notch & progressive die stamping are available and tailored based on an application’s overall requirements. Stamping, for example, offers the lowest high-volume cost and highest magnetic performance for mass production, but sacrifices tolerance control as Hiperco® alloys experience growth during processing. “We’re developing capabilities to understand and predict the growth of lamination stacks, which can be complicated depending on the design of the stack. With this process, we have produced first article stacks with tight tolerances via stamping. Our customers can eliminate wasted time and expense from part and die design iterations, so they move quickly through prototyping to mass production,” Walker explained.
Carpenter Technology continues to work with customers, producing top-performing stator laminations, rotor laminations, and stacks for current applications while validating advanced processes for next-generation stacks that deliver the best performance with a path to scale to mass production.