Toroidally-wound brushless direct-current (BLDC) machines are compact, highly efficient, and can work across a large magnetic gap. For these reasons, they have been used in pumps, flywheel energy storage systems and left ventricular assist devices among others. The common feature of these systems is a spinning rotor supported by a set of (either mechanical or magnetic) bearings. From the view point of dynamics, it is desirable to increase the first critical speed of the rotor so that it can run at a higher operating speed. The first critical speed of the rotor is determined by the radial stiffnesses of the bearings and the rotor mass. The motor also affects the first critical speed if the rotor is displaced from the rotating center. In this paper, we analytically derive the flux density distribution in a toroidally-wound BLDC machine and also derive the negative stiffness of the motor, based on the assumption that the rotor displacement perturbs the flux density distribution linearly. The estimated negative stiffness is validated by finite element analyses.
