Gradient-Based Design Optimization of a Switched Reluctance Motor for an HVAC Application

This work proposes a 6/14 SRM that achieves the performance specifications of a commercially available motor of a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system. The authors developed a MATLAB tool to automate the design process of the considered motor. The tool calculates the sensitivities/gradients of the considered objective function with respect to various design parameters. An interior-point algorithm uses the estimated gradients to simultaneously optimize the geometry and electric-circuit parameters of a 6/14 SRM to maximize the motor dynamic torque. The ON/OFF topology optimization technique then utilizes the obtained adjoint sensitivities with respect to material properties to optimize the ferromagnetic material distribution in the stator teeth of the previously optimized design to reduce the torque ripple.