Restricting the design space of multiple-barrier rotors of synchronous reluctance machines

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to propose a numerical methodology to reduce the number of computations required to optimally design the rotors of synchronous reluctance machines (SynRMs) with multiple barriers.

Design/methodology/approach

Two objectives, average torque and torque ripple, have been simulated for thousands of SynRM models using 2D finite element analysis. Different rotor topologies (i.e. number of flux barriers) were statistically analyzed to find their respective design correlation for high average torque solutions. From this information, optimal geometrical constraints were then found to restrict the design space of multiple-barrier rotors.

Findings

Statistical analysis of two considered SynRM case studies demonstrated a design similarity between the different number of flux barriers. Upon setting the optimal geometrical constraints, it was observed that the design space of multiple-barrier rotors reduced by more than 56 per cent for both models.

Originality/value

Using the proposed methodology, optimal geometrical constraints of a multiple-barrier SynRM rotor can be found to restrict its corresponding design space. This approach can handle the curse of dimensionality when the number of geometric parameters increases. Also, it can potentially reduce the number of initial samples required prior to a multi-objective optimization.

Citation

Mohammadi, M.H., Rahman, T. and Lowther, D. (2017), "Restricting the design space of multiple-barrier rotors of synchronous reluctance machines", COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol. 36 No. 5, pp. 1338-1350. https://doi.org/10.1108/COMPEL-02-2017-0109