Analysis of Novel Multi-Tooth Variable Flux Reluctance Machines With Different Stator and Rotor Pole Combinations

Novel multi-tooth variable flux reluctance machines (VFRMs), which adopt doubly salient stator and rotor structure with nonoverlapping stator ac armature and dc field windings, are investigated in this paper. The rotor pole number can be any integer except the phase number and its multiples. Meanwhile, to obtain symmetrical bipolar phase flux-linkage and back electromotive force waveforms, the ratio of stator pole number to the greatest common divisor of stator- and rotor-pole numbers should be even integers. Furthermore, under the same rated copper loss and stator outer radius as well as 6-pole stator, 4-tooth per stator pole VFRMs in which the stator and rotor pole number determined by N_r = nN_s ± 1 (n is the number of small teeth per stator pole) exhibit the highest average torque. Moreover, compared with the optimal 6/7 stator/rotor pole single-tooth VFRM, the 6/25 stator/rotor pole 4-tooth VFRM has more sinusoidal and larger back EMF, negligible cogging torque, lower torque ripple, and higher torque capability at relatively low copper loss. Similar to single-tooth VFRMs, 4-tooth VFRMs with N_r = nN_s ± 1 exhibit more sinusoidal back EMF and larger torque than that of VFRMs with N_r = nN_s ± 2. The analyses are experimentally validated by several prototype machines.