IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 31, NO.

5 , SEPTEMBEIUOCTOBER 1995 1079

Design Considerations for the

Switched Reluctance Motor
Arthur V. Radun

Abstmct-Analytical design equations are developed to pre- Number of stator poles.

dict the performance and to guide the design of the switched Average power converter by SRM.
reluctance motor (SRM). The use of these analytical equations SRM power factor.
to trade-off different SRM attributes is discussed. The various
approximations and simplifications used in the development of Pole width (rotor or stator).
the analytical design equations are justified using results obtained Radius to rotor pole tip.
from a detailed computer model of the SRM and by using Iron stacking factor.
experimental results from a high power density SRM designed SRM electrical shaft torque.
for an aircraft engine fuel pumping application. Comparisons of Iron yield strength.
predicted and measured machine performance parameters for
this 90-kW 25000 rhnin machine, such as flux linkage curves, Inverter dc bus voltage.
back EMF, electromechanical power converted, and inverter volt- SRM phase voltage.
ampere requirements are presented. It is also shown that there Coenergy.
exists a fundamental maximum torque density that is attainable Rotor-stator pole overlap fraction.
with the SRM and an estimate of this maximum torque density Ratio of BEMF to bus voltage.
limit is given. The power factor for an SRM is defined and the
machine parameters that determine its value are presented. This Main linked flux in Fig. 4.
power factor is compared to the similarly defined power factor Fringing linked flux in Fig. 4.
for an ac machine and found to be smaller. Maximum value of linked flux.
Minimum value of linked flux.
NOMENCLATURE Flux linked by one phase of SRM.
Permeability of free space.
Area of stator pole. Angle defined in Fig. 11.
Winding window area. Angular period of one electrical cycle
Magnetic flux density. Mechanical rotor position.
Back EMF. Angular extent of pole.
Saturation flux density of iron. Angular extent of pole in degrees.
Machine efficiency. Angle defined in Fig. 11.
Air gap between rotor and stator. Angle defined in Figs. 2 and 4.
Fringing field effective air gap. Mechanical angular speed.
Rotor pole height.
Magnetic field intensity.
SRM phase current.
Peak SRM phase current. I. INTRODUCTION
Peak current density.
RMS current density.
Winding factor.
T HE switched reluctance motor (SRM) is being considered
for a number of applications where its unique character-
istics bring an overall system advantage. These applications
Constant relating iron yield strength to rotor velocity. require some combination of high reliability, fault tolerance,
Defined in Fig. 4. high speed, efficient variable speed, and low cost [l], [2].
Defined in Fig. 4. A wide range of applications in the aerospace industry, the
Defined in Fig. 4. automotive industry, and the appliance industry have some
Unaligned inductance. combination of these requirements. The present interest in the
Sum of rotor and stator pole heights. switched reluctance machine has been enabled by the signif-
Length of machine stack. icant advances that have occurred in power electronics and
Number of turns per stator pole. electronic controls because the switched reluctance machine
has very limited functionality without external control of its
Paper IPCSD 95-37, approved by the Electric Machines Committee of the
IEEE Industry Applications Society for presentation at the 1994 IEEE Industry winding currents. This control, in tum, is not practical without
Applications Society Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, October 2-7. Manuscript power electronics and electronic controls. Examples of the
released for publication May 2, 1995. enabling advances in power electronics and electronic controls
The author is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of
Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0046USA. include the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) and the
IEEE Log Number 9413063. digital signal processor.
0093-9994/95$04.00 Q 1995 IEEE

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 1080 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 31, NO. 5, SEPTEMBEIUOCTOBER 1995
I1
Fig. 1.
TT Basic three-phase S R M system.
Numerous papers have been presented describing various
aspects of SRM design and control. The approaches taken
vary from detailed finite element analysis to complex non-
linear magnetic circuit models [3], [7]. The resulting SRM
models are numerical in nature and thus it is difficult to
gain insight into the design and sizing of the SRM through
their use. Empirical piecewise linear models of the nonlinear
SRM, which require parameters obtained from measurements
or calculated from finite element analysis, have also been
proposed [8]. Again, such an approach has limited usefulness
for design. The work presented here is intended to provide
the reader with an analytical SRM model that includes the
effects of iron saturation and requires only geometry and
material parameters as an input. These analytical equations
are complex, but provide a complete analytic model of the
SRM that predicts the machine’s performance curves, such as
the flux linked by the windings, the back EMF (BEMF) and
the static torque. In addition, the analytic model is well suited
for simulating the performance of the SRM. Still simpler and
more approximate results are also developed. These results
are useful for designing and sizing the SRM. These simpler
results also allow the designer to see the effect of machine
geometry, winding current density, and iron properties on
the machines performance. Predictions and conclusions are
compared to results obtained from an experimental high-power
density (90 kW) high-speed (25 000 r/min) SRM.
11. DETAILED
SWITCHED
RELUCTANCE
MOTORANALYSIS
The basic SRM to be considered is a three-phase machine
with six stator poles and four rotor poles. Such a machine is
typically controlled with the circuit shown in Fig. 1. A cross
section of the three-phase SRM is shown in Fig. 2. This figure
also defines geometric variables used in the results that follow.
The dimensions given in Fig. 2 are for the experimental
machine [9]. It will be assumed that there are N turns wound
around each stator pole ( N = 4 for the experimental machine)
and that the windings on opposite stator poles are connected in
series to form a phase. Further it will be assumed that there is
no interaction between different machine phases [I], [ 2 ] , [lo].
Thus the operation of the SRM is completely characterized by
the flux linked by one phase winding which depends only on
the current in that same phase winding and the rotor position
[IO].
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h=
0.421
Rg = 1.625
Fig. 2. Half cross section of the experimental SRM. The rotor is in the
aligned position relative to the horizontal stator poles.
When designing an SRM one of the first questions that
must be answered is, what should the rotor-stator air gap
be? To answer this question, the aligned and unaligned flux
linkage curves for one SRM phase are shown in Fig. 3
for two different SRM designs. The aligned rotor position
occurs when some pair of rotor poles aligns with the phase
winding’s stator poles. The air gap is defined as the distance
between the rotor and stator poles for the aligned position.
The unaligned rotor position occurs when the alignment of
the rotor and stator poles is at a minimum. One of the
SRM designs in Fig. 3 experiences high magnetic saturation
while the other experiences little magnetic saturation. Both
machines arc designed with the same material, for the same
rotor speed, the same peak phase current, and the same BEMF
at the design speed and phase current. The two machines are
assumed to have the same dimensions except for the size
of their air gap. The saturation of the saturating machine is
due solely to its smaller air gap compared to the air gap
in the machine that does not saturate. Because the potential
energy conversion capacity of an SRM is the area enclosed by
its operating trajectory in the flux linkage-current plane, the
saturated machine has the potential to convert approximately
twice the energy of the unsaturated machine for the same
dimensions and peak current [9]. This result shows that in
order to maximize the machine’s power density at a fixed
inverter volt.ampere rating, the SRM must be designed with
a sufficiently narrow air gap that at the aligned position
the machine saturates at a current much less than its peak
operating current. Alternatively this result can be interpreted
that an SRM with significant magnetic saturation (small air
gap) has an effective power factor equal to about twice that
of a nonsaturating design. Since heavy saturation of the SRM
improves its performance, this saturation cannot be ignored in
the design and analysis of the machine.
Because the unaligned and aligned flux linkage curves
determine the maximum energy that can be converted by
the SRM they must be determined [IO]. For the unaligned
rotor position there is no magnetic saturation for any practical
winding current so that only the unaligned inductance needs
to be found. A good estimate of this unaligned inductance can
be obtained by modeling the machine geometry as shown in
Fig. 4. Here the rotor and stator poles are shown approximated
 RADUN DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE SWITCHED RELUCTANCE MOTOR
Aligned Saturated
Aligned Unsaturated
Fig. 3. Aligned flux linkage curves for an SRM that experiences significant
saturation and for one that does not.
with rectangular geometry. The predominate flux path is from
the stator pole to the rotor so that only the field in the box
formed by the rotor pole, rotor yoke, and the dotted lines
needs to be calculated. This assumption is supported by the
finite element calculation in Fig. 7. The tangential field along
the iron is taken to be zero. Thus, only the tangential field
along the dotted lines in Fig. 4 must be determined in order
to solve for the magnetic field. The required tangential field
on this boundary can be approximated using Ampere's law as
N I divided by the distance between the stator and rotor pole
tips in the region between the poles and zero where the stator
pole is located as shown in Fig. 4. Doing this, the field in the
box in Fig. 4 can be expanded in a Fourier series. Integrating
the y component of the resulting field at y = h from z = 0 to
E and multiplying by 2N approximately gives the flux linked.
The unaligned inductance is identified from this flux linkage
expression and is
sin [F]+sin nrlz [TI
The unaligned inductance computed using (1) does not include
the contribution to the inductance from the end turns. It can
be compared with the unaligned inductance computed using
two-dimensional finite element analysis which also does not
include the contribution of the end turns to the inductance. For
the experimental machine in Fig. 2, (1) gives 52 p H for the
unaligned inductance while a two-dimensional finite element
analysis gives a value of 64 pH, a 23% error. The lower
value given by (1) is expected since not all of the flux passing
through the stator slot (the slot inductance) has been accounted
for.
Equation (1) can be used to find the unaligned inductance as
a function of the rotor pole height h. This function is plotted
in Fig. 5 for the geometry of the experimental machine, which
has 31' pole widths, and for a machine with a 35' pole width.
The pole height is normalized to the spacing between the rotor
and stator pole tips with the rotor in the unaligned position.
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I081
h- X
Fig. 4. Geometry for calculating the unaligned inductance.
0.001
I I I I 1
Lu
- a
Lu
b
-5
1-10
0.5 1 l.S 2 2.5 3
h/ll
Fig. 5. Plot of the unaligned inductance as a function of the rotor pole height
normalized to the rotor-stator pole spacing for two different rotor pole widths.
From this figure it is clear that the rotor pole height does not
need to be greater than about 1.5 to 2.0 times the spacing
between the rotor and stator pole tips. In the experimental
machine of Fig. 2, the ratio of the rotor pole height to its pole
width is 0.993 which suggests improved machine performance
could have been obtained with a greater rotor pole height.
The geometry in Fig. 4 can be used to find the phase
inductance for rotor positions other than the unaligned position
as long as the rotor and stator poles do not overlap and
the current is low enough that the iron does not saturate. A
similar accuracy is obtained for these other rotor positions as is
obtained for the unaligned position. Once the rotor and stator
poles overlap a new approach is required because magnetic
saturation of the iron becomes a dominant issue. The measured
flux linked by a phase winding, for the experimental machine,
is shown in Fig. 6 [9]. In the figure, each individual curve is
a plot of the flux linked by the phase winding as a function
of the winding current at a fixed rotor position. Note that all
of the flux linkage curves bend over, exhibiting saturation,
at essentially the same current. Also, there is a second less-
pronounced bend in the curves that occurs at constant flux.
These features of the measured flux linkage curves can be
understood by inspection of Fig. 7 which shows the typical
flux paths for one rotor position, obtained by finite element
analysis [9]. The iron near the air gap, where the flux necks
 1082 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 31, NO. 5, SEPTEMBERpCTOBER 1995

0 100 200 300 400 500

PhasoCurnnt, Amp.
Fig. 6. Measured flux linkage curves for the experimental machine. Curves
for different angles exhibit saturation at nearly equal currents.

down to cross the air gap, saturates, producing a dominant

high reluctance region this flux must pass through. Thus
even though the phase poles are not saturated across their
entire angular extent, the flux linkage curves show saturated
behavior. The current at which this saturated behavior occurs is
found using Ampere's law with a contour passing through the
pole overlap region. Computing the current at which saturation
occurs and the saturated part of the flux linked by the phase
winding gives Stator pole ~
slot

Y 1
--- ---- --- IS

Here a is the fraction of rotor and stator pole overlap.

Because ( 2 ) does not depend on the rotor position, the flux
linkage curves will all bend over, exhibiting saturation at
~~~~~~~~~~~
ptv-pg e
~~ .
*
rotor pole

1
the same current independent of rotor position when there
is pole overlap. Equation (3) says that the saturated part of
the linked flux will vary linearly with rotor position and
will not depend on the phase current when there is pole
overlap and the phase current exceeds These results are
in general agreement with the measured flux linkage curves
shown in Fig. 6, except the measured data show the linked
flux increasing after saturation occurs. This increase in the
linked flux is due to flux crossing from the rotor to the stator
outside of the rotor pole. Eventually this fringing flux, which is
added to the flux passing through the saturated iron, saturates
the entire stator pole. The saturation of the entire stator pole
occurs at a constant linked Hux giving the second bend in the
Hux linkage curves.
To compute the flux linkage curves of the SRM analytically,
the model in Fig. 8 will be used. This model assumes the
phase flux driven by the same ampere tums, splits between two
magnetic paths in parallel. In each of these parallel branches,
there is an air gap in series with saturating magnetic iron.
The iron characteristics are the same in both branches but the
air gaps have different values with the fringing flux passing
through the larger air gap. The cross-sectional area of the
two branches depends on the rotor position which determines
the extent of rotor and stator pole overlap. The fringing flux
air gap is assumed to be a function of rotor position. It is a
maximum at initial pole overlap and a minimum at the aligned

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 RADUN DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE SWITCHED RELUCTANCE MOTOR
Fig. 9. Comparison of the measured flux linkage curves for the experimental
machine and the flux linkage curves calculated using the analytical model
equations.
cross-sectional area of the pole overlap (multiplied by 2N) to
obtain the contribution of the main flux path to the flux linked
by the phase. After some algebra, the main flux path linked
flux is found to be (see (7) at bottom of page) where
A, = 2 . p o . N . l n t k ~ t f
and
lm =Is + P'S
pop +); '
Because g / l s is much less than unity, this term can be
neglected in all of the denominators in (7). This term must
be kept in the numerator because the 1/2 term will cancel at
high currents leaving only the g / l s term. A similar result to
(7) can be obtained for the fringing flux with the appropriate
substitutions for g and the area of the flux path. Again
the g f / l s term can be neglected compared to unity in the
denominator but not the numerator.
Af(0; I) =
+NI- P (8)
where
The total flux linked by the phase is the sum of the main
flux and the fringing flux. Fig. 9 shows a comparison of the
calculated flux linkage curves to the measured flux linkage
curves for the experimental machine. The calculations were
done using the geometry in Fig. 2, a relative permeability of
p, = 5000, and a saturation flux density B,,, = 2.5T and
a stacking factor stf = 0.9. Good agreement between the
measured and calculated Rux linkage curves is obtained.
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1083
Fig. 10. Comparison Of the experimental machine's measured static torque
and the static torque computed using the
Because the equation developed for the flux linkage is an
analytic function, it can be integrated and differentiated to
find the machine's BEMF and its static torque as a function of
rotor position and phase current. Calculating the static torque
is a useful exercise since it involves first integrating the flux
linkage with respect to current to obtain the coenergy and
then differentiating the coenergy with respect to rotor position
to get the torque. Because these mathematical operations
(especially differentiation) will magnify errors in the analytical
model, and static torque is easily measured, the static torque
is a particularly good model verification tool. The result of
calculating the static torque of the experimental machine is
shown in Fig. 10. The static torque was computed using (7)
and (8) for the rotor positions where the rotor and stator
poles overlap and using (1) for the rotor positions where the
rotor and stator poles do not overlap. The agreement between
calculated and measured static torque is quite acceptable for
engineering purposes and the calculated torque contains the
desired effect of saturation near the aligned rotor position.
The greatest difficulty for the model occurs where the rotor
and stator pole overlap just begin. This is because the model
(1) where then, is no pole overlap does not include saturation.
111. SRM DESIGNEQUATIONS
Though the results obtained above give good agreement
with the measured machine characteristics, the results obtained
are sufficiently unwieldy to be primarily suitable for analysis
rather than for design. To obtain results that are useful for
design, it is necessary to take advantage of the simplification
offered by tht! saturation of the SRM. The SRM terminal
voltage is
dAd
Vd = dt
aA,di+
- -_
-
ai+ dt
+ -w,.
8A+
dom
(9)
The first term in (9) is the usual Ldildt term and is equal
to the slope of the flux linkage curves with current at a fixed
 1084 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 31, NO. 5, SEPTEMBEWOCMBER 1995

angle and thus the slope of the flux linkage curves in Fig. 6 or
9. The inductance term limits the current into the machine and
as such needs to be minimized in order to minimize the volt-
amperes that must be handled by the SRM's converter. The
second term in (9) is the BEMF term due to the motion of
the rotor and is the term where the electromechanical energy
conversion takes place. The BEMF term is equal to the change
in linked flux at a constant current with a change in rotor angle. Motorlng Generating
The flux linkage given in (7) and (8) could be used to
90
evaluate (9). In the case of a saturated machine, a simpler, I F I I
I I
more approximate result is possible. With saturation, the ' $$ion
c-4+--4
'7 I\ Allgned
inductive term is small so the flux linked by a phase can be eadv T
approximated as
Fig. 11. The ideal and more realistic BEMF/w, for an S R M as a function
A4 = R, . l s t k . s t f . Bsat 2N.
' (10) of rotor position. Also shown are typical phase currents for both motoring
and generating.
where a is the fraction of rotor and stator pole overlap and
stf is the iron stacking factor. If (10) is plotted as a series
of flux linkage curves, the plot will consist of horizontal lines phase current is constant with pole overlap, assuming that the
(since the flux linkage does not depend on current) that are flux linked by the phase winding increases linearly with rotor
equally spaced (since the flux linkage is proportional to a). position up to the aligned position, and thus the BEMF is
Thus the simplified flux linkage curves generated by (10) are constant.
a reasonable approximation to the actual flux linkage curves The design point for the SRM is taken to be the minimum
for currents large enough to saturate the machine. For the speed at which full power is to be produced. The machine is
experimental machine, the aligned linked flux computed using designed so that at this speed its BEMF is equal to the dc bus
(lo), a pole width of 33", and a 0.9 stacking factor is voltage. Equation (9) can be used to write the BEMF of the
machine as
Amax - Amin
BEMF =w,
0,
which compares very well with the measured results. The -
.9~,2N. l s t k . st f . RgBpBsat
- . (12)
approximate flux linkage given in (10) can be used to compute 8,
the machines static torque. The result is Here the phase flux has been written in terms of the flux
Tq = 0.9Rg . l s t k . stf . Bsat ' 2N. I. density and the geometry. Note that the BEMF does not depend
(11)
on the pole width 0, since this angle cancels in (12). The
Because the static torque given by ( 1 1) does not depend on 0.9 factor in (12), and subsequent equations, comes from
rotor position, the static torque curves are horizontal curves the assumption that the ratio of the unaligned inductance
for a fixed current as a function of rotor position. The static to the unsaturated aligned inductance is 0.9 and Arnin is
torque varies linearly with current which means the static approximately 0.1 of Amax.
torque curves will be evenly spaced for different currents. The electromechanical power converted by the SRM is
At a current of 500 A, (1 1) predicts that the static torque is
5 1.6 N . m. These results for the simplified model of the SRM (13)
are in general agreement with the measured static torque in
Fig. 10. Here P F stands for power factor and (13) can be taken as the
The variation of the BEMF divided by the rotor speed with definition of the SRM's power factor. Substituting (12) for the
rotor position is illustrated in Fig 11, along with a typical phase dc bus voltage and (14) for the phase current
current waveform for both motoring and generating. In Fig. 1 1 , fi.JrmS. K . A, = 2N. i+, (14)
this normalized BEMF is small for a finite angular extent of
rotor positions around the unaligned rotor position. This region into (13) for the power gives
consists of the rotor positions where there is no rotor-stator
pole overlap. Thus, in this region the machine inductance is a
minimum and has the minimum variation with rotor position.
P
It is in this region of rotor positions that the initiation of motor (15)
phase winding excitation must occur to maximize d i l d t and BsatKJrmsWm '
thus obtain the maximum machine phase current [9], [IO]. Equation (15) is an expression for the machine's area product
Once the rotor and stator poles start to overlap, the BEMF (A,), familiar from inductor design. Its SI units are m4. The A,
increases to its full value. For the plots shown in Fig. 3, the is the product of the total pole area and the total area available
BEMF for both the saturated and unsaturated machines was for one phase winding. It should be noted that the A, and
chosen to be equal to the applied voltage. In this case, the thus the machine size (excluding the yoke) remains the same

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 RADUN: DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE SWITCHED RELUCTANCE MOTOR
1200
1.000
0 800
0.600
0.400
0.200
0.000
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 131415 16
Design No.
Fig. 12. Ratio of the mechanical A, to the electrical A, for different SRM
I
designs.
as the number of poles changes while keeping a three-phase
machine structure since NspBPis a constant. The quantity on
the left-hand side of (15) will be referred to as the mechanical
Ap(Apm)while the quantity on the right-hand side will be
referred to as the electrical A p ( A p e During
). the design process
A,, is computed to determine Apm.A plot of the ratio of Apm,
computed from geometry, to Ape, computed using (15) and
P, Jrms,and P F computed with a detailed computer model of
the SRM, for a number of different machine designs and pole
counts is shown in Fig. 12 [9]. This ratio is nearly always one
and is always greater than one. The fact that this ratio is greater
than one seems reasonable since the electrical area product
is equal to the minimum mechanical area product required
to achieve the desired machine performance. Machines larger
than this minimum can also give the desired performance.
The analysis so far does not suggest a limit on the power
density, or more importantly, for an electrical machine, the
torque density of the SRM. From (IS), just increase the current
density. Of course, cooling puts a limit on this strategy. In
addition, even if A,,, is taken to zero, raising the current
density to an infinite value, the iron area will still be there,
and thus the rotor volume will not be zero even though the
area product is zero. Ultimately, the maximum torque density
of the SRM rotor is determined by the peak current that can be
developed in the machine. This peak current is limited by the
machine’s unaligned inductance, and inductance was ignored
in developing (15) except as it impacts the power factor P F .
To estimate the limit on the SRM’s maximum torque density,
first compute the peak phase current, limited by the unaligned
inductance. This maximum current can be simply calculated,
for the case where the BEMF equals the bus voltage when
there is pole overlap and is zero otherwise, as
vbus
QP = -Bad” *
WmLu
Next, estimate the unaligned inductance
Here F is a factor to account for the fringing of the field at the
unaligned position. Its value can be estimated using (I). The
air gap path length has been taken to be equal to the fringing
path RgOu = l 1 = E2 in Fig. 4 which assumes the rotor pole
height is greater than this value. It is seen that Rg cancels in
(17) so that to first order the unaligned inductance does not
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1085
1.00E+05
9.00E+04
8.00E+04
7.00E+04
$ 6.00E+04
5.00E+04
4.00E+04
3.WE+04
2.00E+04
l.WE+04
O’OOE+OO1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1415 16
Design No.
Fig. 13. Torque density of different SRM designs optimized using a detailed
computer model of the SRM.
depend on the rotor’s radius. Combining (I 2), (13), (16),and
(17) gives
p/wm
~-
____ 3 .g22PF . e f f . st f . BEt Bad,Bu
* (18)
lstknRi 2 r-F*p, BP
Equation (18) states that the rotor torque density has a maxi-
mum value that depends strongly on the saturation flux density
of the iron used. A plot of the rotor torque density for different
machine designs using CoFe, optimized and computed using
a computer model of the SRM, is shown in Fig. 13 [9].
Though the computed torque density is not the same for
all the designs, much of the differences can be attributed to
differences in ratios of g to RgB, = 11, of h to pur, and
of Vbusto BEMF. The maximum rotor torque density for an
SRM employing CoFe appears to be approximately equal to
100000 N.m/m3. Equation (18) can be used to calculate the
maximum torque density of an SRM employing SiFe from the
result for the C‘oFe by ratioing the square of the saturation flux
densities. The resulting maximum torque density for SiFe is
(1.8/2.5)2*100000 = 52000 N.m/m3.
The above result is for the specific case where the BEMF
is equal to thc bus voltage at the design point of interest.
This condition gives the lowest phase current for the power
converted. However, the SRM’s torque density can be in-
creased by operating it with a BEMF less than the bus voltage,
accepting the penalty that the phase current will increase in
order to produce the same power, effectively reducing the
SRM’s power factor. This characteristic results because the
BEMF is proportional to the number of turns per pole while
the unaligned inductance is proportional to the turns squared.
(16) Thus if the number of turns is halved, the peak current can be
four times larger while the BEMF is only halved so that the
power converted is doubled. Setting the BEMF equal to a,
times the bus voltage in (13) changes (18) to
P~w,,, -
~- 3 PF .g22. S t f 2
- --
. B:at 6adveu
. (19)
lstkrR; 2 LYE T . F . ~ , 0,
The torque density in (19) appears to increase with the square
of the decrease in a,. As will be shown below, the power
factor is proportional to cy,, so that the torque density increases
only proportionately with the decrease in nu.
 1086 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 31. NO.5, SEPTEMBEWWTOBER 1995
The power factor defined in (13) is an important design
parameter. In the ideal case, only one SRM phase is on at a
given time so
P= vbUs&. PF-eff
= vbus ' i + p -
Thus the maximum power factor of the SRM is 2/3 = 0.666
when the machine efficiency is 1.O. Typically the power factor
is less than this, because the air gap is too large to sufficiently
saturate the poles and because of the unaligned inductance. To
obtain a better estimate of the power factor when the BEMF
is equal to a, times the bus voltage and the phase current
is a constant during pole overlap, write the average power
converted as
for a three-phase machine. Equation (21) assumes the BEMF is
nearly zero when the phase current is increasing or decreasing
and the BEMF is essentially constant and equal to a, times the
bus voltage during pole overlap. Here, 0, is the angular extent
of rotor rotation for one electrical cycle and 0~ is the angular
extent of rotor rotation where the BEMF and current are large
and nearly constant. Note that this region of maximum BEMF
ends before alignment as indicated in Fig. 1 1 . A practical angle
for the switches to be turned off is 13' before the aligned
position where the BEMF starts to decrease [9]. In this case
the power factor is approximately given by
for a three-phase, six-stator pole, four-rotor pole SRM. All
angles are in degrees. Note that the power factor does not
depend on the number of stator poles. Note too, that the power
factor increases as the pole width increases. Equation (22)
gives a good estimate of the power factor computed using a
detailed SRM computer model for rotor pole widths from 3 1 O
to 33".
The power factor for the SRM can be compared to the power
factor of a sine wave (ac) machine with unity power factor. For
a Y-connected ac machine, the machine phase current is equal
to the inverter switch current, similarly to the SRM. The phase
voltage, which is the line-to-neutral voltage, is not equal to the
inverter bus voltage, unlike the SRM where the phase voltage
does equal the inverter bus voltage. The phase voltage of the ac
machine, considering just the first harmonic, is approximately
the bus voltage times 4/7r divided by the square root of three.
Thus the power converted by the ac machine in terms of bus
voltage and peak phase current is
when the machine is operating at unity power factor. This says
that the ac machine's power factor needs to be multiplied by
4/7r and divided by the square root of three or equivalently
multiplied by 0.735 in order to be compared to the SRM's
power factor. Thus the maximum SRM comparable power
factor for the ac machine is 0.735 at unity efficiency compared
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to 0.666 for the SRM. With a 32' pole width, unity efficiency
and a, = 1 (22) predict an SRM power factor of 0.422 while
values computed using a detailed computer model range from
0.432 to 0.50.
The power density of the SRM can be found by multiplying
(20) the torque density in (19) by the machine design speed. The
result of doing this is that the power density of the SRM
is proportional to machine speed. This is because the BEMF
of the machine is proportional to the number of turns while
the unaligned inductance (and all other inductance values)
is proportional to the number of turns squared. Thus, if the
machine speed design point where the BEMF is equal to the
bus voltage is doubled, the number of turns on the machine
will have to be halved, keeping all other quantities the same.
Halving the number of turns decreases the inductance by a
factor of four, so that the current that can be built up in the
machine is twice as large at the higher speed even though the
time available to build it up has been halved. This doubles the
power converted since the BEMF is the same. Also the torque
and current density are the same since the current has doubled
but the number of turns has halved.
This means that the SRM should operate at the maximum
speed allowed by the rotor iron in order to achieve maximum
power density if the speed is a design variable. A higher speed
machine design can be achieved by increasing the length of
the machine and decreasing its radius to reduce the mechanical
stress. Of course the maximum ratio of rotor length to radius
is limited by the first critical speed of the rotor assuming that
operating under the first critical speed is a design constraint.
Another limit on how long the machine can be made is the
air gap. As the rotor radius is shrunk, the air gap should be
shrunk proportionately to maintain the R,@,/g ratio. Other
considerations that limit the length of the machine include the
minimum shalt radius which ties back to critical speed, and
of course the fact that when R, and l s t k are plugged into ( 1 2)
to find N , the result must be an integer.
Assuming that the rotor mechanical stress is proportional to
the rotor peripheral velocity squared
T, = K,(R,w,)~ (24)
and that the machine is operated at the rotor's maximum
mechanical stress, (17) and (22) can be used to determine the
dependence of' the power density on the rotor iron's strength.
From (25), it can be seen that the rotor power density increases
as the square root of the rotor iron strength.
None of the results obtained so far have depended on
the number of machine poles. This does not mean that the
number of machine poles does not affect the performance
of the SRM. As with any other machine, the SRM with a
higher pole count will be able to utilize both a thinner stator
yoke and a thinner rotor yoke than a machine with a lower
pole count, reducing the machine's weight. The higher pole
count machine will require a narrower air gap for the same
performance, it disadvantage, but can operate with lower rotor
 RADUN: DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE SWITCHED RELUCTANCE M O nI R
pole heights, an advantage. Higher pole count SRM’s operate
at higher electrical frequencies at the same mechanical speed
and thus will experience higher losses. Thus the considerations
for determining the number of poles for the SRM are similar
to those for other machines.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
Analytical models of the SRM have been developed that
include the effect of the significant saturation that occurs in
a well-designed machine. One model is of a detailed nature
and can predict details of the SRM’s performance such as
the unaligned inductance, flux linkage curves, BEMF, and
static torque. The other model is less detailed but is useful
for design, providing design insight for the SRM and an
initial sizing capability. These analytical models have been
verified by comparing them to the results obtained with a
detailed computer model of the SRM and by comparing
them with experimental results obtained from a high power
density machine. It has been shown that there is a fundamental
maximum torque density that is attainable with the SRM and
an estimate of this value has been given. The power factor
for an SRM has been defined and the machine parameters that
determine its value have been identified. This power factor has
been compared to the similarly defined power factor for an ac
machine and found to be smaller.
REFERENCES
[ I ] E. Richter, “Switched reluctance machines for high performance oper-
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at the Int. Conf. Electrical Machines (ICEM) ’90,Boston, MA, 1990.
121 C. M. Stephens, “Fault detection and management system for fault
tolerant switched reluctance motor drives,” in Cant Rec. IEEE Ind.
Applicat. Soc. Annu. Meeting, Sept. 1989, pp. 574-578.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute. Downloaded on June 09,2021 at 07:07:35 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1087
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[SI D. E. Cameron and J. H. Lang. “The control of high speed variable
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[ 6 ] D. E. Cameron, J. H. Lang, and D. Belanger, “The computer-aided
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[7] J. Faiz and I. W. Finch, “Aspects of design optimization for switched
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Arthur V. Radun worked for General Electric Ord-
nance Systems Department for approximately five
years where he worked in the area of power elec-
tronics circuit design and electromagnet analysis.
He was employed at the General Electric Corporate
Research and Development Center, Schenectady,
NY, for nearly eight years, where he worked on
the development of a number of switched reluctance
drive systems for aerospace applications. He is
currently an Assistant Professor of electrical engi-
neering at the University of Kentucky, Lexington.
His research interests include solid-state power conditioning and motor drive
development, and electromagnetics and electric machine development. He
presently is actively involved in switched reluctance machine and drive system
research.