This paper presents a new rotor design with assembled permeable retaining sleeve (APRS) to improve performances of a high speed permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM). The APRS consists of equal number of permeable and nonmagnetic parts, which are alternately arranged and assembled together circumferentially via keyways. Electromagnetic and mechanical characteristics of the rotor applied to a high
speed flywheel PMSM are analyzed using finite element method. Machine performances are compared to an original design with commonly used rotor structure. It shows that phase inductance of the high speed machine increases dramatically due to smaller effective air gap, which may benefit suppressing inverter current harmonics. Also, permanent magnet usage reduces by 9.4 % to obtain identical back electromotive force and torque constant. In addition, a smaller skin depth owing to high-permeability material and the circumferential segmentation of the retaining sleeve effectively reduce rotor eddy current. Associated loss decreases by 40.7 % under open-circuit condition. A prototype rotor is fabricated and preliminary experimental tests are performed to confirm the analysis results.