Adaptive mesh generation applied to switched-reluctance motor design

The design of switched-reluctance motors (SRMs) requires the calculation of the phase flux linkage of the motor as a function of rotor position and exciting current. The authors describe a new method to establish this variation using finite element techniques. The mesh preparation, boundary source and material data, equation solution, and extraction of machine data from the solution are all done completely automatically. The designer is thus removed from the numerical analysis chores that, formerly, greatly reduced effectiveness. The method has also been applied to flux linkage against position determination in permanent magnet machines