Distributed winding

Distributed winding is the proper (traditional) winding pattern of three-phase AC or brushless DC motors, where the number of slots per phase per pole ‘q’ is 2 or more and the coils are installed such as shown in fig. (a). The motor of fig. (b) has two sets of windings (a 4-pole one and an 8-pole).
In the 4-pole winding q equals 24÷3÷4=2, while it is 1 in an 8-pole setup, which implies that a distributed configuration is not available; in this case a winding type known as full-pitch winding is adopted. The advantage of a distributed winding is that the back-emf waveform is near to sinusoidal, even if fifth or seventh harmonic components are included in the magnetization pattern on the rotor magnet.