Design and optimization of high torque, low ripple switched reluctance motor with flux barrier for direct drive

While switched reluctance motors (SRM) have good performances, such as high torque, high speed, and high reliability, SRM has serious disadvantage of large torque ripple. In order to reduce the torque ripple and improve the average torque of the motor, this paper proposes a new type of SRM with inserted flux barriers into the rotor. The proposed type SRM is simulated for various configurations of the flux barriers and a shape optimization of the barrier has been carried out additionally. The performances of proposed type of SRM were confirmed by finite element analysis and experimentation and advantages and limitations of using flux barriers in SRM design for high torque are discussed. From the analysis results, it must be noted that the proposed type has great advantage over the conventional type toward trend of higher torque per a volume. Calculated and experimental results are presented, to validate the inserting the flux barriers and the resulting improvements.