Energy futureDay of ultra-clean engine nears

Iver Anderson is a senior metallurgist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and adjunct professor of materials science and engineering at Iowa State University. He is playing a major role in advancing electric drive motor technology to meet the enormous swell in consumer demand for cleaner cars expected over the next five years. He and his Ames Lab colleagues, Bill McCallum and Matthew Kramer, have designed a high-performance permanent magnet alloy which operates with good magnetic strength at 200 degrees Celsius, or 392 degrees Fahrenheit, to help make electric drive motors more efficient and cost-effective. The work is part of the DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Program to develop more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly highway transportation technologies that will enable America to use less petroleum.

Anderson explained that future ultragreen vehicles include fully electric cars, fuel-cell automobiles, and plug-in hybrids. “They all have electric drive motors, so that’s a common theme,” he said. “It’s important that those motors be made economically with an operating envelope that fits how they will be driven. The automotive companies in this country have set out a series of parameters that they would like electric motors to meet.” One of those constraints being addressed by Anderson and his colleagues is the need for permanent-magnet electric motors to operate well at temperatures up to 200 degrees Celsius. “That raised a lot of eyebrows for people who know anything about magnets,” said Anderson. He explained that the most desirable permanent-magnet materials are neodymium-iron-boron magnet materials based on a 2-14-1 crystal structure