Publication

Abstract : The general trend seen in the modern electrical industry is an increased adoption of reluctance machines. These devices offer performance rivaling other designs like induction and permanent magnet while having efficiency and cost advantages. Due to their lack of need for permanent magnets and rotor circuits, these machines are a prime choice for applications with sustainability in mind. Rare earth mining is not needed for these machines and the lack of rotor circuitry allows for higher efficiency and durability. The lack of mainstream adoption until recently has been needed for a complex drive circuitry, which is now being solved using lowered computation costs and advances in solid-state electronics. To explore the possibility of an efficient and novel motor drive design, the simulation of a three-phase 6/4 60kW switched reluctance motor (SRM) drive is designed to make the motor go into free-wheeling operation once every two rotations. The proposed system operation was compared with the regular motor operation to validate the benefit of increased efficiency.