Electrical machine technology: Innovation and research

Electrical machines are widely used in industry, households, vehicles, ship propulsion, aircraft, military equipment, medical equipment and agriculture. Over the past decades, much progress in electrical machine technologies has been made in both research institutions and industry, which are largely stimulated by new materials, novel machine and drive technologies, new application areas and more stringent energy efficiency standards. As a result, several innovative electrical machine technologies have emerged, which brings about new challenges in the design and analysis of these special electric machines, as traditional electrical machine theories, design methodologies and numerical simulation techniques may not be directly applied. My research has been focused on the technology development, formulation of design theory and strategy, devising of numerical simulation techniques and critical performance evaluation of special electrical machines such as linear machines, axial field machines, line-start permanent magnet machines and flux-modulated electrical machines. In this inaugural lecture, I will give an overview of my past research activities in this specific field.

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Short biography

Rong-Jie Wang obtained his MSc (Eng) degree from the University of Cape Town in June 1998 and his PhD (Eng) degree from Stellenbosch University in April 2003. He held various research posts at Stellenbosch University from 2003 to 2009 on a part-time basis, first as a postdoctoral research fellow and then as a researcher and a senior researcher. In 2010, he was appointed as a senior lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of Stellenbosch University, where he was promoted to associate professor in 2014 and became a full professor in 2020. In addition, he has over seven years’ industry working and consulting experience.

His research interests are special electrical machines, novel topologies of permanent magnet machines, computer-aided design and optimisation of electrical machines, thermal analysis, electric traction and renewable energy systems.

Prof Wang has published approximately 100 papers in international journals and conference proceedings. He is a co-author of the monograph titled Axial flux permanent magnet brushless machines (2004). He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, an NRF-rated researcher, an editorial board member of several international journals and a registered professional engineer in South Africa.

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