An Alternate Rotor Geometry for Switched Reluctance Machine With Reduced Torque Ripple

Abstract

Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) benefits from a simple, low cost, and robust structure. However, it exhibits high levels of torque ripple and vibration due to its non-uniform distribution of the flux and force densities in the air gap. To address this problem, a novel rotor with optimally designed flux barriers has been designed to be used along with a conventional SRM stator. In this paper, an optimization algorithm comprised of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been used to identify the best rotor geometry for maintaining average torque while minimizing torque ripple and tangential vibration of the stator. The performance of the optimized motor is then compared with a conventional SRM of the same size experimentally. The results show significant improvement in torque ripple as well as vibration for the new topology with no tangible drop in efficiency at high speeds.