Determining the Control Parameters of a Switched Reluctance Motor Drive Based on Energy Utilization

The energy utilization ratio (ER) quantifies the utilization of a Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM). Calculation of ER of an SRM can be different from other motors as it has highly non-linear operating characteristics and uses an asymmetric bridge converter. In this paper, the concept of ER for SRMs has been explained first and then a computation methodology is presented based on the co-energy and stored energy in the magnetic system. The magnetic stored and co-energy are evaluated in ANSYS Maxwell for the static characterization of the motor. These magnetic energy quantities are computed under the dynamic operation of the SRM drive from the area under the flux linkage-current curve to compute the energy utilization. An experimental correlation is performed for validating the proposed ER computation methodology in SRM drives. Finally, the components of the energy utilization ratio are applied to determine the control objectives of a switched reluctance motor drive to improve the electromagnetic performance. Utilizing the energy utilization ratio components in the optimization of the phase turn on and turn off angles of an SRM helps to achieve a single optimization objective to improve the average torque, energy utilization, and torque ripple performance, and they can be used in multi-objective optimization, as well.