Detent force develops generally undesirable effect that contributes to the output ripple of machine, vibration and noise. This paper proposes detent force minimization techniques for a Permanent Magnet Linear Synchronous Motor (PMLSM). In addition, thrust according to each minimization technique is estimated to observe the change of machine performance. A two-dimensional Finite Element Method is used to predict detent force and thrust due to structural factors and non-linearity. And moving node technique for geometric models is proposed to reduce modeling time and efforts.