Linear motor has been considered to be the most suitable electric machine for high speed and high precision linear motion control. Thrust of linear motor is one of the important factor to specify motor performance. Maximum thrust can be obtained by increasing the current in conductor and is relative to the sizes of conductor and magnet. But, the current and the size of conductor have an effect on temperature of linear motor. Therefore, it is practically important to find design results that can effectively maximize the thrust of linear motor within limited range of temperature. Finite element analysis was applied to calculate thrust and numerical solutions were compared with experiment. The temperature of the conductor was calculated by the thermal resistance which was measured by experiment. The optimum design process was coded by the ADPL of ANSYS which is a commercial finite element analysis software. Design variables and constraints were chosen based on manufacturing feasibility and existing products. As a result, it is shown that temperature of linear motor plays an important role in determining optimum design.
