Fault tolerant winding technology comparison for Flux Switching Machine

In safety critical aerospace applications, fault tolerant drives can help reach the necessary system reliability levels without replicating the entire drive system and thus minimizing the overall system weight. Machine selection and design for fault tolerance has to be considered at an early stage to ensure optimal performance at system level. Permanent magnet Flux Switching Machines have the distinct property of having a robust rotor construction with the permanent magnets embedded in the stator whilst having their operational characteristics similar to those of synchronous permanent magnet machines. Some slot-pole combinations with particular winding technologies possess natural fault tolerant capability. This paper analyses and compares the fault tolerant properties of permanent magnet flux switching machines of two recently proposed configurations fulfilling the key fault tolerant requirements. The configurations considered are 12 slot 14 pole Double Layer winding with ferromagnetic slot separator and 12 slot 13 pole Single Layer design.