Improved Accuracy for Performance Evaluation of Synchronous Reluctance Motor

Abstract

This paper develops an approach that is capable of accurately predicting the performance of synchronous reluctance motors (SynRMs). The SynRMs receive increasing attention and have been used in many industrial applications. The 2-D finite element analysis (FEA) is usually considered to be competent for design and analysis of SynRMs. However, the power factor of SynRMs is likely to be considerably overestimated. This would then lead to an underestimation of current required and cause problems for the design of electronic drivers. Compensation should be made to improve the accuracy of the analysis for SynRMs although there does not seem to be a solution put forward so far. The research in this paper shows that the exclusion of end turn leakage inductances in 2-D analysis is a key factor to cause such a significant difference. To resolve this problem, this paper analytically calculates the end turn leakage inductance, which is then incorporated into the 2-D FEA. The developed method is found to agree well with the experimental results, and it significantly improves the design accuracy and efficiency using only the 2-D FEA.