— This paper presents a method to characterize the main magnetic force waves occurring in a sinusoidally-fed induction machine. Three main force types are identified: slotting force waves, winding force waves and saturation force waves. Slotting force waves are characterized in terms of number of nodes, velocity, propagation direction and magnitude. On the ground of the expression of these forces magnitude, a method to cancel a given magnetic force wave by properly choosing the rotor slot or stator slot opening width is presented. This new method is validated with both simulations and experiments. Contrary to the common design rule that advices to decrease rotor and stator slot openings width in order to reduce magnetic noise, it is shown that a wider slot opening can lower the global noise level when properly chosen.