SWITCHED RELUCTANCE MOTOR

• 1969, a variable reluctance motor has been

proposed for variable speed applications.
• Even though this machine is a type of synchronous
machine, it has certain novel features.
• It has wound field coils of a dc motor for its stator
windings and has no coils or magnets on its rotor.
Both the stator and rotor have salient poles, hence
the machine is referred to as a doubly salient
machine and singly excited machine.
• Rotor is built up from a stack of laminations.
SWITCHED RELUCTANCE MOTOR
• The rotor is aligned whenever diametrically
opposite stator poles are excited.
• In a magnetic circuit, the rotating member
prefers to come to the minimum reluctance
position at the instance of excitation.
• While two rotor poles are aligned to the two
stator poles, another set of rotor poles is out
of alignment with respect to a different set of
stator poles.
 Then, this set of stator poles is excited to bring
the rotor poles into alignment.
 Likewise, by sequentially switching the currents
into the stator windings, the rotor is rotated.
 The movement of the rotor, hence the
production of torque and power, involves
switching of currents into stator windings when
there is a variation of reluctance; therefore, this
variable speed motor drive is referred to as a
switched reluctance motor drive.
OPERATION OF THE SWITCHED
RELUCTANCE MOTOR
Phase C and A are aligned
MOTOR CONTROL
 Features of SRM
1. The torque is proportional to the square of the
current, hence the current can be unipolar to
produce unidirectional torque.
This unipolar current requirement has a distinct
advantage in that only one power switch is
required for control of current in a phase
winding.
Such a feature greatly reduces the number of
power switches in the converter and thereby
makes the drive economical.
2.The torque constant is given by the slope of
the inductance vs. rotor position
Characteristic.
It is understood that the inductance of a stator
winding is a function of both the rotor
position and current, thus making it nonlinear.
Because of its nonlinear nature, a simple
equivalent circuit development for this motor
is not possible.
3. Since the torque is proportional to the square of
the current, this machine resembles a dc series
motor; hence, it has a good starting torque.
4. A generating action is made possible with
unipolar current.
5.The direction of rotation can be reversed by
changing the sequence of stator excitation. This
machine is suitable for four-quadrant operation
with a converter.
6. Torque and speed control is achieved with
converter control.
7.This machine requires a controllable converter for
its operation and cannot be operated directly
from a three-phase line supply.
Hence, for constant speed applications, this
motor drive is expensive in comparison to
induction and synchronous motors.
8. Because of its dependence on a power converter
for its functioning, this motor drive is an
inherently variable-speed motor drive system.
• There is very little mutual inductance between
machine phase windings in SRM, and for all
practical purposes it is considered to be
negligible.
• Since mutual coupling is absent, each phase is
electrically independent of other phases. This is a
feature unique to this machine only.
• Due to this feature, note that a short-circuit fault
in one phase winding has no effect on other
phases.
 switched reluctance motor is
similar to the step motor except that it has:

1. Fewer poles
2. Larger stepping angle
3. Usually one tooth per pole
4. Higher power output capability
Variation of inductance and torque with
rotor position; coil current is constant.
A = aligned position;
U - unaligned position; J - start of overlap;
K - end of overlap.
• Coil inductance L varies with rotor position as
shown in Figure. Positive rotation is in the
counterclockwise direction.
• Assume that the coil carries a constant current.
Positive motoring torque is produced only while the
inductance is increasing as the rotor approaches the
aligned position between positions J and A.
• At J, the leading edge of the rotor pole is aligned
with the first edge of a stator pole; at A, the rotor
and stator poles are fully aligned.
• Thus J defines the start of overlap, A the maximum
overlap, and K the end of overlap.
• The torque changes direction at the aligned
position.
• If the rotor continues past A, the attractive
force between the poles produces a retarding
(braking) torque.
• To eliminate the negative torque impulses, the
current must be switched off while the poles
are separating, i.e. during the intervals AK,
Variation of inductance, current, flux-
linkage, torque, and EMF with rotor
position, with ideal pulsed
unidirectional current.
• When the overlap between rotor and stator pole
corners is quite small, the concentration of flux
saturates the pole corners, even at quite low
current.
• When the overlapping poles are closer to the
aligned position, the yokes saturate at high current,
tending to limit the maximum flux-linkage.
• Unidirectional torque can be produced only over a
limited angle where the overlap angle between the
rotor and stator poles is varying.
• To provide continuous unidirectional torque, with
self-starting capability from any rotor position, the
motor is generally provided with additional phases
which lead to a 'multiplicity' of stator and rotor
poles.
• The number of strokes per revolution is related to
the number of rotor poles Nr and the number of
phases m, and in general S = mNr.
• The fundamental frequency f1of the current in each
phase is evidently equal to the rotor pole passing
frequency, i.e.f1=rpm/60 *Nr
 Power switching circuits for for SRM:
 Each phase of SRM should be able to conduct
independent of the other phases

 Converter should be able to demagnetize the phase before

it steps into the generating region if the machine is
operating as a motor and should be able to excite the
phase before it steps into the generating region if operated
as a motor.

 The converter should be able to freewheel during the

chopping period to reduce the switching frequency.

 The converter should be able to utilize the demagnetization

energy from the off going phase in a useful way by either
feeding it back to the source or using it in the next
conducting phase.
 Various power semiconductor
switching circuits:

• Two power semiconductor switching devices

per phase and two diodes
• (n+1) power switching devices and (n+1)
diodes.
• Phase winding using bifilar wires.
• Split link used with even phase number
• C-dump circuit
1) Two power semiconductor switching
devices per phase and two diodes
 MERITS

 Control of each phase is independent of other

phases.
 The converter is able to freewheel during the
chopping period at low speed which helps to
reduce the switching frequency and switching
losses of the converter.
 The energy from the off going phase is fed back
to the source which helps in utilization of energy.
 DEMERITS
• Higher no. Of switches required in each phase
makes the converter expensive

• Also can be used for low voltage applications.

2)(n+1) power switching devices and
(n+1) diodes
 MERITS
• Low no of switching devices.
• Reduced cost.
• Voltage rating of all switching devices and
diodes are Vdc/2 which is relatively low.
• The energy of off going T is fed back to the
supply which results in useful utilization of
energy and improves the efficiency.
 DEMERITS
• At higher speed the off going phase can’t be
deenergized fast enough because power
semiconductor device is on with long duty
cycle.
• The common switch conducts for all the
phases and thus has higher switching stress.
3) Phase winding using bifilar wires.
 MERITS
• Low no of switches and reduced cost.
• Fast demagnetization of phases during
commutation
 DEMERITS
• Bifilar winding suffers from double no.of
connections.
• A poor utilization of copper.
• The imperfection of coupling between the two
winding causes voltage spikes during turn off.
• The copper loss is also high.
4)Split link used with even phase
number: used for highly efficient
drives from 4kw to 80kw
• In this Vdc power supply is split into two
halves using split capacitors. During half one
cycle energy is supplied to phases and the
other half demagnetise into power supply.
 MERITS
• It requires lower no of switching devices.
• Faster demagnetisation of phases during
commutation.
 DEMERITS
• During chopping free wheeling is not possible
as the phasor have the voltage Vdc/2 .This
causes higher switching frequency and more
losses.
• This is not feasible for low voltage application.
• The converter is less fault tolerant as fault in
any phase will unbalance the other phase that
is connected to it.
5)C-dump circuit
FIVE MODES OF OPERATION
 MERITS
• Requirement of minimum number of
switches.
• Independent phase current control is possible
in C-Dump converters.
 DEMERITS
1. C-Dump converter is not suitable for high
speeds.
2. Efficiency of the C-Dump converter is lower.
3. C-Dump converter is unable to provide zero
voltage.
Dump capacitor voltage is maintained at 2Vdc.
Monitoring capacitor and control of dump
switch is complicated.
 APPLICATIONS OF SRM
• Many of the applications are categorized as
low-, medium-, and high-power and high
speed drives for rotary motor drives.
• Plotter drive: Hewlett-Packard developed and
uses an SRM as a servo drive in a plotter that
produces about 0.1275 Nm torque at 4000
rpm and a maximum power of 53 W.
• Hand fork lift/truck motor drive: Radio
Energie, a French company, has developed an
SRM drive for this application.
• Its ratings are 1.8 kW at 1500 rpm with four
times the full torque for braking.
• It has a measured efficiency of 82% at 3200
rpm. A MOSFET four-quadrant converter drive
has been chosen for this application, which
has the potential to become high volume.
• Door actuator system: Besam produces a door
actuator with a three-phase,12/8 pole motor
delivering 5 Nm. at 300 rpm. It is a position
control system that requires low-speed operation
with high accuracy. This is a fairly high-volume
application.
• Washers and dryers: Two companies have
introduced SRM drives for their washer and dryer
lines, primarily for economic considerations.
Torque waveform of SRM
SPEED CONTROLLED SRM
Waveforms in three-phase 6/4
switched reluctance machine.
 SPEED TORQUE CARACTERISTICS
• Based on different speed ranges, the motor
torque generation has been divided into three
different regions: constant torque, constant
power and falling power region.
• The tail current may not even drop to zero. In
the high speed operation, the continued
conduction of current in the phase winding
can increase magnitude of phase current and
the power density can be increased.
• Angle control method
• The switched reluctance drive is known to provide
good adjustable speed characteristics with high
efficiency.
• However, higher torque ripple and lack of the
precise speed control are drawbacks of this
machine.
• To have precise speed control with a high efficiency
drive, SR drive has to control the input voltage
instantaneously.
• The angle control is adjusted to have high efficiency
drive through efficiency test.
 Switching angle control method
• In SRM drive, it is important to synchronize
the stator phase excitation with the rotor
position; therefore, the information about
rotor position is an essential for the proper
switching operation.
• By synchronizing the appropriate rotor
position with the exiting current in one phase;
the optimal efficiency of SRM can be achieved.
• Current source is a proper type to excite an SRM for its good
feature of electromagnetic characteristics because it
produces rectangular or flat-topped current and it is easy to
control the torque production period.
• Therefore, it is considered as an ideal excitation method for
switched reluctance machine but difficult and expensive to
realize it.
• To produce similar current shapes in voltage
source, it is needed to regulate the supply voltage
in the variable reluctance conditions. Usually
PWM or chopper technique is used for this
purpose.
• But it is complex in its control circuit and
increases loss. The other technique which is more
simply in control is excitation voltage to form a
flat-topped current by using fixed switching angle
at various operation conditions.
Excitation scheme with fixed switching
angle control method
• Advance angle control method
• The SRM is controlled by input voltage, switch-on and
switch-off angle. Switch-on and switch-off angle regulate
the magnitude and shape of the current waveform.
• Also it results in affecting the magnitude and shape of the
torque developed. To build up the current effectively with a
voltage source, an advance switching before the poles meet
is needed.
• The switch-on angle is one of the main factors to control
the build-up currents. Therefore, this angle is controlled
precisely to get optimal driving characteristics.
• The regulation of speed-torque characteristics of
SRM drive is achieved by controlling advance
angle and applied voltage.
• The advance angle is regulated to come up with
the load variation in cooperation with the applied
voltage.
• The signal from the control loops is translated
into individual current reference signal for each
phase.
• The torque is controlled by regulating these
currents. The feedback signal which is
proportional to the phase detector is used to
regulate the instantaneous applied voltage.
 Current control method
• Control of the switched reluctance motor can be done in
different ways. One of them is by using current control
method.
• The current control method is normally used to control the
torque efficiently.
• Voltage control has no limitation of the current as the
current sensor is avoided, which makes it applicable in low-
cost systems.
• Due to the development of microcontrollers, the different
control loops have changed from analog to digital
implementation, which allows more advanced control
features.
• Voltage chopping control method
• The voltage chopping control method compares a
control signal Vcontrol (constant or slowly
varying in time) with a repetitive switching-
frequency triangular waveform or Pulse Width
Modulation (PWM) in order to generate the
switching signals.
• Controlling the switch duty ratios in this way
allowed the average dc voltage output to be
controlled.