An overview of design and calculation of a synchronous-reluctance machine

Because of the absence of rare earth magnets, the reluctance synchronous machine has a more favourable sustainability balance compared to the permanent magnet synchronous machine with NdFeB magnets. Additional advantages include the absence of copper in the rotor and the ease of manufacture of the non modified rotor. A clear disadvantage of the reluctance synchronous machine is the relatively high torque ripple if no measures such as skewing are taken. Therefore, the machine is mainly used in applications such as fans where the torque ripple is not critical for the operation. The paper makes a contribution to addressing the problem of torque pulsation. For the reduction of torque harmonics, the usage of various rotor designs as well as asymmetric rotor geometry are presented. In addition, the aspect of torque harmonics, which is predicted by the finite element analysis is discussed and possibilities of torque ripple reduction for further investigations are shown. The description of a reluctance network of the machine is addressed with a semi-analytical approach for this purpose. Finally, the results of the preliminary calculation are validated by finite element analysis (FEA) and the quantities are verified with measurements on a device under test. The deviations between the methods are shown and discussed.