Title: Torque ripple minimisation in SR motors using phase inductance gradient compensation technique

Authors: R. Gobbi; K. Ramar

Addresses: Faculty of Engineering, The University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus, Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia. ' Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, Jalan Multimedia, 63100 Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract: The switched reluctance motor (SRM) is intended to operate in deep magnetic saturation to increase the output power density. Because of the saturation effect and the variation of magnetic reluctance with respect to rotor position, all the relevant characteristics of the machine are highly non-linear functions of both rotor position and phase current. The ultimate outcome of all these non-linearities is that the generated torque contains significant ripples. Determination of appropriate phase current profile for generating torque in SRM with minimum ripples poses a lot of difficulty owing to the non-linear magnetic characteristics. A new method is introduced in this work that computes inductance gradient at each rotor position and phase current to modulate the phase current which produces zero torque ripples. The experimental results indicate that the torque ripple is reduced to lie within 5% of the desired steady torque even in dynamic operating conditions.

Keywords: SR motors; torque ripples; gradient compensation; current modulation; power conversion; switched reluctance motors.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEC.2012.044297

International Journal of Power and Energy Conversion, 2012 Vol.3 No.1/2, pp.19 - 41

Received: 13 Apr 2010
Accepted: 25 Apr 2011
Published online: 07 Aug 2014 *

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