Novel Approaches Towards Leakage Flux Reduction in Axial Flux Switched Reluctance Machines

First, exclusive investigations are performed in this paper on a developed prototype of an axial flux switched reluctance machine to elicit the issues of low inductance ratio due to higher leakage flux in this type of machine. Thereafter, three different novel approaches based on a special winding configuration, segmented grain-oriented steel core and magnetic shielding are proposed to mitigate the leakage flux. These approaches are then tested individually using 3-D FEA. In addition, comparative performance analysis of the original machine model and the machine with each of these approaches is carried out.