Abstract: Aiming at air cooling and thermal recession problem of the traditional eddy current retarder,a type of salient pole electromagnetic liquid-cooled retarder(ELR) was proposed. The liquid channels were equipped in the retarder's stator. The heat generated during the operation was discharged through a liquid-cooled system,which can make the retarder maintain a lower temperature. Firstly this paper introduced the structure of retarder. After conducting theoretical analysis,the magnetic and the eddy current field of the retarder were analyzed by the finite element analysis software. The effects of the conductivity,the excitation current and excitation current saturation degree on the brake torque were discussed in detail.Resultsshow that the braking torque becomes increasingly saturated with the increase of the electrical conductivity; when the excitation current is saturated,the torque increases slightly with the increase of the excitation current; when the degree of saturation excitation current increases,the torque changes slowly.