Reducing torque ripple of switched reluctance machines by relocation of rotor moulding clinches

Abstract

Switched reluctance machines (SRMs) are of great interest because of their simplicity, low-cost, reliability, robustness, fault-tolerance and extended-speed constant-power operation. However, conventional SRMs suffer from high torque ripples. There exist several methods, which have been proposed to reduce torque ripples. One of the proposed methods is to change the geometric structure of the machine. However, analysis of the state-of-the-art designs show that, despite achieving favourable results in applications, the moulding pins of the machines are normally neglected. A motor that gives positive results may get affected negatively by its random moulding during its manufacturing. In this paper, mitigation of torque ripples in short-pitched SRMs (SPSRMs) and fully-pitched SRMs (FPSRMs) are investigated. Three-phase SPSRM and FPSRM are chosen for this study and the effects of the geometric points of moulding pins in the machines are studied comparatively. Maxwell 2D program is used for the analysis and two different models are compared for both SPSRM and FPSRM. The obtained results show that the torque ripples of the two machines are lower when moulding pins are closer to the rotor position. It is reduced by 2.56% at 10 Amps in the proposed SPSRM and 12% at 6 Amps in the proposed FPSRM. It is also observed that the applied method is more effective in reducing torque ripples of FPSRMs than SPSRMs. © 2012 The Institution of Engineering and Technology.