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In this study, the electromagnetic performances of dual 3‐phase permanent magnet (PM) machines with coil span of two slot‐pitches are comparatively investigated. It mainly focuses on two PM machines with different slot/pole number combinations (Ns/2p), that is, the 24‐slot/10‐pole and 24‐slot/14‐pole machines (2p = Ns/2 ± 2). First, winding configurations are illustrated for these two dual 3‐phase machines with 30° angle displacement. Then, the winding factor, back electromotive force, average torque, torque ripple, iron and PM losses, short‐circuit (SC) current, and PM irreversible demagnetisation are analysed and compared for both machines on the conditions of healthy operation and one set of three‐phase fault, that is, SC or open circuit (OC), respectively. The comparative results show that on healthy condition the 14‐pole PM machine has a slightly larger torque output. Besides, on 3‐phase OC condition, the 14‐pole machine also performs better over‐rating torque capability. In terms of iron and PM losses, the 10‐pole machine has smaller iron losses but larger PM losses than the 14‐pole machine. Moreover, on 3‐phase SC condition, the 14‐pole machine has a significantly lower risk of PM irreversible demagnetisation than the 10‐pole machine, although both machines have very similar SC currents. Finally, the 24‐slot/10‐ and 14‐pole dual 3‐phase PM machines are both prototyped and some tests are carried out for validation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current harmonics are ubiquitous in dual three phase (DTP) permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) drives. Due to back electromotive force (EMF) distortion, significant current harmonics are generated in the DTP-PMSM system. The influence of back EMF harmonics is investigated in this paper and a novel switching-table-based direct torque control method to compensate the selected current harmonics caused by the back EMF harmonics is proposed. It shows that by employing different optimal action time durations for voltage vectors in the z1z2 subspace and setting the synthetic voltage vectors to non-zero, the stator flux harmonics caused by the back EMF harmonics can be selectively compensated, as verified by experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fractional-slot permanent magnet (PM) machines with an odd number of stator slots are attractive candidates for industrial applications due to their high torque density and low torque ripple. However, the unbalanced magnetic force is detrimental to the bearing and yields noise and vibration. This paper determines the existence criterion of UMF on both open-circuit and on-load conditions by analysis of air gap field and magnetic force waves. Only when the machine periodicity is one, will the open-circuit UMF be generated due to the mutual interaction between the modulated PM harmonics and the original PM harmonics. In addition, the existence of on-load UMF in machines with a periodicity of one is confirmed even when the slotting effect is ignored. Furthermore, among the five investigated machines with a given odd slot number of 9 but different pole numbers, the UMF in a machine with two poles is the smallest since the magnitude of the 2nd harmonic in the armature reaction is the smallest compared with other contributing harmonics. Meanwhile, the UMF in a machine with pole number 2p = Ns−1 is the largest due to the relatively larger magnitude of the (p + 1)th armature reaction harmonic and the additive effect between the first order radial and tangential stresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a current profiling technique is proposed for the torque density enhancement in switched reluctance machines (SRMs). The novel current profile is initially developed from the harmonic current injection method and is then modified into a unipolar waveform to allow the application of an asymmetric bridge inverter. It is found that, neglecting the magnetic saturation, the optimal current profile for the maximum torque per ampere operation in an SRM is close to a pulse with high-order harmonics. However, an optimized current with relatively low-order harmonics can provide better performance in the practical situation. Based on the analytical and the finite element results, the proposed method is proved to be able to enhance the torque density by 20% at the light load condition and by 15% at the rated condition compared with the conventional SRM excitation. Also, the large torque ripple and core loss in SRMs are suppressed and the efficiency is improved. More importantly, unlike many other current profiling techniques, the proposed current profile has fixed parameters and is easily adaptable to different machine specifications. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by both the finite-element analyses and the experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second harmonic current injection method is recently developed to enhance the torque density of variable flux reluctance machines (VFRMs). This article investigates the feasibility and effectiveness of the second harmonic current injection method in VFRMs with different stator/rotor pole combinations. By using magnetic gearing effect, it is found that the second harmonic injection method can only be applied to the 6j/(6i ± 2)j (i, j = 0, 1, 2…) stator/rotor pole VFRMs for the torque density enhancement. For the other stator/rotor pole combinations, the second harmonic current has no contribution in average torque production but only leads to excessive torque ripple. Further, by using global optimization method and finite element analysis, 6/8 stator/rotor pole combination is proved to be the optimal stator/rotor pole combination for 6-stator-slots VFRMs with the second harmonic current injection method, being able to exceed the maximal torque density of conventional VFRMs by 12% at a fixed copper loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the underlying mechanism of low‐power factor issue of variable flux reluctance machines (VFRMs) from the perspective of magneto‐motive force (MMF)‐permeance model. On the basis of a simplified analytical model, the relationship between the design parameters and the power factor is identified and systematically summarised into three predictable ratios: the rotor permeance ratio, stator/rotor‐pole ratio and DC/AC winding ampere turns ratio. Specifically, the smaller the rotor‐pole arc, the air‐gap length, the rotor‐pole number and the AC/DC winding ampere turns ratio are, the higher the power factor will be. In addition, the weak coupling between the field and armature windings caused by the modulation effect of the salient rotor is responsible for the low‐power factor issue of VFRMs, regardless of the control scheme, winding configuration or saturation effect. A 6‐stator‐pole/4‐rotor‐pole VFRM is prototyped and tested for verification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The split ratio of rotor outer diameter to stator outer diameter is one of the most important design parameters due to its significant impact on machine torque density and efficiency. It has been optimised analytically in existing papers with due account given only for the thermal limitations. Here, the optimised split ratio for high‐speed permanent magnet machines (HSPMM) with consideration of the mechanical constraints is investigated analytically. In addition, the influences of flux density ratio, maximum operating speed and sleeve material on the optimised split ratio are discussed in detail. The analytical results are verified by finite‐element analyses. It is demonstrated that the optimised split ratio as well as the achievable torque of HSPMM is significantly reduced when the mechanical constraints are taken into consideration. The experimental results on a 6/slot‐4pole HSPMM confirm the validity of previous analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the investigation is focused on the iron loss prediction for electrical machines fed by low switching frequency inverter. An improved iron loss model is developed after reviewing various existing iron loss models considering pulse-width modulation (PWM) influence. In order to validate the improved iron loss model, iron loss tests are carried out on an electrical machine. The predicted iron loss results match well with the measured results, which shows that the improved iron loss model is able to predict iron loss in electrical machine fed by an inverter. The comparison between the predicted iron losses with and without considering the PWM influence shows that the iron loss can be significantly increased due to the influence of PWM, especially when the switching frequency is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]