Synchronous Reluctance Motor Performance Based on Different Electrical Steel Grades

This paper investigates the influence of various electrical steel grades on the torque and efficiency of synchronous reluctance motors (SynRMs). Four different steel grades are studied for the same motor geometry. A finite-element method is combined with an experiment-based magnetic material model to study the effect of the four steel grades on the performance of the SynRM. On the one hand, there is a negligible effect on the torque ripple because this ripple depends mainly on the motor geometry. On the other hand, it was found that the material properties have an obvious effect on the SynRM efficiency and output power. Evidently, the low loss grades result in higher efficiency: 9% point higher for NO20 compared with M600-100A. One of the four considered grades is designed to have a higher flux density in the useful magnetic field range (a few hundreds to a few thousand amperes per meter). This grade has somewhat lower efficiency, but results in a higher saliency ratio and an 8% higher torque output compared with the worst grade. Some experimental validation results are shown.