Electromagnetic energy conversion efficiency enhancement of switched reluctance motors with zero-voltage loop current commutation

W. U Nuwantha Fernando, Mike Barnes

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Zero-voltage loop (ZVL) commutation in switched reluctance (SR) motor operation can result in a significant improvement of their performance by lowering the flux-linkage peaks and harmonic magnitudes of the magnetic flux densities within the core of the SR motor. The efficiency enhancement provided by ZVL commutation, especially in high-speed SR motoring has not been thoroughly investigated to-date. This paper investigates the energy conversion efficiency of SR motors with ZVL current commutation. The lowering of core losses is investigated with finite element modeling of a 250 kW 12/8 SR motor. An enhancement of efficiency in the ranges of 0 - 3% and 0 - 5% is computed considering operation below base-speed and above base-speed respectively. The effect of core material on the ZVL commutation performance is also investigated for the 250 kW 12/8 SR motor. The increase of efficiency with ZVL is further validated with experimental results on a 300 W 6/4 SR motor which achieves an enhancement in the range of 2-6%. © 2012 IEEE.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number6565368
    Pages (from-to)482-492
    Number of pages10
    JournalIEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion
    Volume28
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2013

    Keywords

    • Copper loss
    • core loss
    • current chopping
    • excitation control
    • single pulse
    • switched reluctance (SR) motor
    • zero-volt loop (ZVL)

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