Experimental Evaluation of Characteristics of SR Motor Made of Permendur

Abstract

A switched reluctance (SR) motor has a doubly salient pole structure. The performance of the SR motor strongly depends on the magnetic properties of the core material since it consists only of an iron core and copper windings. This study experimentally evaluates the performance of an SR motor made of permendur (Fe-49%Co alloy), which has very high saturation flux density and low core loss. Two types of SR motors that have the same dimensions but different core materials are used: one motor is made of the conventional non-oriented Si steel, and the other is made of permendur. Comparison of the characteristics of the two motors shows that the performance of the permendur SR motor surpasses that of the conventional one in terms of output power and efficiency.