Switched Reluctance Motor

OVERVIEW
1. MOTOR DRIVES: IN GENERAL
2. MAIN FEATURES OF SRM
3. SRM STRUCTURE
4. OPERATION OF SRM
5. SRM CONVERTERS
6. CONTROL OF SRM
7. APPLICATION OF SRM
• The dc machine has been the primary choice
for the servo applications, because of their
excellent drive performance and low initial cost.
• The advantages of the ac machine to the dc
machine are in the areas of torque-inertia ratio,
peak torque capability and power density. Also
ac machines do not need commutators and
brushes.
• The low cost, ruggedness and almost
maintenance free operation of the induction
machines have made it the workhorse of the
industry.
• The different types of synchronous motors are
used because of the high level of accuracy that
can be achieved in speed control.
• In low power applications, the permanent
magnet (PM) synchronous motors are
extensively used for their high efficiency and
good performance.
• The simplicity in both motor construction and
power converter requirement made the
switched reluctance motor (SRM) an attractive
alternative to the induction motor and the PM
motors in adjustable speed Drive
• The SRM is a doubly-salient, singly-excited
machine with independent windings of the
stator.
• Its stator structure is same as PM motor, but
the rotor is simpler having no permanent
magnet on it.
• Stator windings on diametrically opposite
poles are connected in series or parallel to
form one phase of the motor.
• Several combinations of stator and rotor poles
are possible, such as 6/4 (6 stator poles and 4
rotor poles), 8/4, 10/6, 12/6 etc.
• 4/2, 2/2 configurations are also possible, but
with these it is almost impossible to develop a
starting torque when the stator and rotor poles
are exactly aligned.
• The configurations with higher number of
stator/rotor pole combinations have less torque
ripple.
• The design objectives are to minimize the
core losses, to have a good starting capability
and to eliminate mutual coupling.
SRM STRUCTURE

Stator
SRM Configurations
• Depends on:
– Number of stator/rotor poles
– Number of phases
– Number of repetitions
• Connections of the stator
– windings (series or //)
• Common Configurations:
– 6/4 (6 stator poles/4 rotor poles), 3 phases, 1 rep.
– 8/6, 4 phases, 1 rep.
3-PHASE SRM WITH
REPETITIONS
Arc Widths
• Constraints for rotor and stator pole arcs:
– Minimum size such that the motor can
produce torque in either direction for any rotor
position

– Maximum size such that flux is present in only

one rotor pole when stator poles are
energized
• The two constraints on the arc widths limit
the size of the arc widths within a defined
area limited by the min. and max. arc
widths.
• The practical area is further limited to the
lower half triangle where the rotor pole
arcs are larger than the stator pole arcs.
ADVANTAGES
• The rotor does not have any windings, commutators,
brushes or cages.
• The torque-inertia ratio is high.
• It provides high reliability, wide-speed range at
constant power, low manufacturing cost, fast dynamic
response, ruggedness and fault-tolerance.
• No shoot-through and crossovers in the converter.
• The maximum permissible rotor temperature is higher
since there is no permanent magnet.
• Open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current at faults
are zero or very small.
DISADVANTAGES

• Doubly-salient structure causes

vibration and acoustic noise.
• High torque-ripple.
SRM OPERATION (PHASE-A
EXCITED)
(PHASE-B EXCITED)
PHASE-C EXCITED
POLE ALIGNED POSITION
POLE UNALIGNED POSITION
SRM INDUCTANCE PROFILE
SRM Nonlinear Characteristics
• The nonlinear saturating characteristics of real
magnetic steel has a marked influence on the
energy conversion process in an SRM.
• Only for very low values of saturation, the
characteristics approximate the ideal linear case.
• The flux-current characteristics in the unaligned
position is approximately linear because the
magnetic path is dominated by large air gap and
flux densities are small.
• In the aligned position the air gap reluctance is
small and flux density is high, which causes high
saturation at higher currents.
VOLTAGE BALANCE EQUATION And
TORQUE PRODUCTION
• The voltage-balance equation for one
phase

• The nonlinear machine torque is

derived from
• Also

• Assuming a linear relationship between

• phase flux and current i.e. =Li and
• neglecting the resistive drop
• So
TORQUE SPEED
CHARACTERISTICS
 Region #1: Constant Torque
• Current, and hence torque, kept constant by
PWM or chopping.
• At low speeds current rises instantaneously
due to small back-emf.
• At medium speeds, phase advancing is
necessary. Phase turn-off is also advanced so
that current decays to zero before rotor passes
alignment. PWM or chopping is still possible.
Region #2: Constant Power
• High back-emf forces current to decrease once pole overlap
begins.
PWM or chopping no longer possible. Conduction angle is
increased in proportion to speed, primarily through phase
advancing.
• Maximum current can still be injected into the motor to
sustain high enough torque.
• Core and windage losses increase rapidly.
• Constant power can generally be maintained upto 2-3 times
the base speed.
• Region #3: Natural characteristics
• Upper limit of conduction angle is reached when equals half
the rotor pole-pitch., i.e., half the electrical cycle at the onset
of region #3.
• Conduction angle is fixed, but pulse position can be
advanced.
• Maintaining torque production is no longer possible and it
falls off inversely with speed2.
• The torque is independent of the direction of
current . unipolar converters (bi-directional for the
voltage and unidirectional for the current) are
sufficient.
• Unidirectional in current and independent phases
wide variety of converters possible.
• The choice depends on the requirements of the
application and the configuration of the SRM used.
CLASSIC BRIDGE CONVERTER
Split-Capacitor Converter
• A voltage of Vdc/2 is applied to each motor
phase.
• Requies an even number of phases, but has
only
• one switch per phase.
• The currents in the winding must be balanced to
• avoid charge unbalance at the capacitor
midpoint.
• Swithces require 2.Vdc rating
• Total switch kVA rating is 2.Vdc.I