IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 41, NO.

10, OCTOBER 2005 4069

Calculation of the Flux-Linkage Characteristics of a

Switched Reluctance Motor by Flux Tube Method
N. K. Sheth, Student Member, IEEE, and K. R. Rajagopal, Senior Member, IEEE

Electrical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India

The torque developed by a switched reluctance motor (SRM) is dependent on the change of flux-linkage and rotor position. The flux-
linkage is a function of both the excitation and the rotor position. Due to the nonlinear nature of this motor, estimation of the flux-linkage
characteristics is cumbersome. In this paper, a simple analytical method to estimate the flux-linkage characteristics of SRM is presented.
Here, equations for the calculation of inductance and the flux-linkage for three identified regions based on the rotor position; a) fully
unaligned to starting of pole overlap, b) starting of pole overlap to full pole overlap, and c) full pole overlap to fully aligned conditions,
are derived in terms of motor dimensions, the magnetic properties of the materials used, and the stator excitation. The validation of the
results obtained from this new analytical method is carried out using the finite element analysis of the motors.
Index Terms—CAD, finite-element (FE) analysis, flux-linkage, inductance, MATLAB, motor, switched reluctance motor (SRM).

I. INTRODUCTION

C ALCULATION of accurate flux-linkage characteristics

is necessary for predicting the torque developed by a
switched reluctance motor (SRM). The flux-linkage being a
rotor position and stator excitation dependent quantity, merely
considering its values for the fully aligned and unaligned con-
ditions of the stator and rotor poles for calculating the torque
developed by the motor, will lead to erratic results. Methods
for calculation of the fully aligned and unaligned inductances
and flux linkages are available in [1] and [2]. The finite element
(FE) method can be used to compute the inductances at various
rotor positions of the SRM [3], but this necessitates a package
and more time for modeling the motor. In this paper, equations
for calculating the phase inductances and flux-linkages of a
multiphase SRM for all the rotor positions and stator excitations
using analytical method are presented.

II. METHODOLOGY
After conducting FE analyses of various configurations of
multiphase SRM, it is observed that the angle between the un-
aligned and aligned positions which is equal to half the rotor
pole pitch can be divided in to three regions: a) fully unaligned
to starting of the pole overlap, b) starting of the pole overlap to
full pole overlap, and c) full pole over lap to fully aligned condi- Fig. 1. Flow-chart to calculate the inductances and flux-linkage of SRM.
tion of stator and rotor poles. These three regions are identified
in such a way that each one of these can be accurately modeled
using a predetermined number of flux tubes, which is decided III. INDUCTANCE FOR REGION I
after analyzing the flux plots of the motor obtained from the FE Fig. 2 shows the nomenclature used for dimensions of the
analysis for all rotor positions and various excitations. Using the motor. The first region, i.e., from fully unaligned to the starting
flow chart shown in Fig. 1, inductance for each tube is calculated of pole overlap, can be shown as
and summed up to get the phase inductance. Once the phase in- .
ductance is known, it can be multiplied with the phase Fig. 3(a) shows the flux line plot for the fully unaligned po-
current to get the phase flux linkage , where, is sition obtained from the FE analysis. Nine flux tubes as shown
the angle of displacement of the rotor from the fully unaligned in Fig. 3(b) will be sufficient to represent the actual flux paths
condition. of this region.
The dotted line in Fig. 4 shows the flux tube 1. Considering

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4070 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 41, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2005

Fig. 5. Flux line plot and assumed three flux tubes for region II.

Fig. 2. Nomenclature used for physical dimensions of SRM. yoke, the length of the flux tube is and
its corresponding area is . In the rotor core, the length
and the area of the flux tube can be worked out as

and (5)

These calculations made for the tube passing through the

Fig. 3. Flux line plot and assumed flux tubes for region I.
right side of the upper portion of the stator is valid for the
left side of the lower portion also. The total reluctance of the
tube is the summation of the reluctances of both these halves,
and following the procedure shown in Fig. 1, the inductance
contributed by tube 1 is calculated. Similarly inductances
contributed by all the tubes are calculated and summed up to
get the phase inductance .

IV. INDUCTANCE FOR REGION II

The second region, i.e., start of pole overlap to full overlap,
can be shown as
. Fig. 5(a) shows the flux line plot obtained from
the FE analysis. Five flux tubes will be sufficient to represent
the actual flux paths of this region. Fig. 5(b) shows three of the
assumed flux tubes for this region. The remaining two flux tubes
Fig. 4. Flux tube 1 for region I. are similar to the flux tube 8 and 9 of the region I, shown in
Fig. 3(b). If represents the stator and rotor pole overlap angle,
then the area of the tube for the overlap can be worked out as
. Airgap length of the tube is twice the actual
airgap length of the motor. Length of the stator pole, length and
coordinates of points B and C and hence the airgap length of the area of the stator yoke and rotor core are as same as given in the
tube is calculated as Section III. The inductance for tube 1 is calculated as given in
the flow chart of Fig. 1, and also for other tubes. The total phase
(1) inductance is calculated as .

V. INDUCTANCE FOR REGION III

(2)
Airgap length of the tube (3) The third region, i.e., from full overlap to fully aligned condi-
tion can be shown as .
From the FE analysis it is observed that two flux tubes will
Rotor and stator pole areas
be sufficient to represent the actual flux paths of this region.
Fig. 6(a) shows flux line plot for the fully aligned condition and
and (4) Fig. 6(b) shows the assumed flux paths for this region.
Mean path length through the stator and rotor poles
The tube area is half of the sum of the stator and rotor pole
areas. The path lengths through the rotor pole and stator pole are
and , respectively. In the stator (6)
SHETH AND RAJAGOPAL: FLUX-LINKAGE CHARACTERISTICS OF A SWITCHED RELUCTANCE MOTOR
Fig. 6. Flux tubes for the calculation of aligned inductance.
TABLE I
MOTOR DIMENSIONS
Mean path length through the airgap and the rotor core
and (7)
Reluctance of the circuit (8)
Using (6)–(8) and appropriate areas, inductance is calculated
for the tube-1 using the procedure given in Fig. 1, and also for
other tubes. The total phase inductance is calculated as
.
A program is developed in MATLAB to calculate the phase
inductance and flux-linkages for various regions of the SRM
rotor position as shown above. The flux-linkage characteris-
tics of two designs of 5 hp, four-phase, 8/6 SRM with the di-
mensions given in Table I, are computed using the developed
program and is compared with the corresponding characteris-
tics obtained by the FE analysis for the motors. Fig. 7 shows
the flux-linkage characteristics computed by both the methods
for motor I. Table II gives a comparison of the unaligned, half-
aligned, and fully aligned flux-linkages of both the motors cal-
culated using the two methods. It can be observed that the results
obtained using the new method is fairly matching with those ob-
tained from the FE analysis. However, it is interesting to note
that the error at the unaligned region is more than the aligned
and partially aligned regions. In the unaligned condition, the
leakage flux passes through all the nearby area; thereby neces-
sitating more and more flux tubes for computation of the actual
4071
Fig. 7. Comparison of flux-linkage characteristics computed by the analytical
and the FE methods for motor I.
TABLE II
FLUX-LINKAGE AT VARIOUS ROTOR POSITIONS FOR 1781 A EXCITATION
inductance. But as the absolute values of the phase inductance
and the flux-linkage at the unaligned position are too low, the
effect of this error in calculation of the developed torque will be
negligible.
VI. CONCLUSION
A simple analytical method for accurately calculating the
phase inductance and flux-linkage characteristics of a mul-
tiphase SRM for all rotor positions and stator excitations,
which can be used to calculate the actual developed torque,
is presented in this paper. The results obtained using the new
method is as good as those obtained from the FE analysis.
REFERENCES
[1] J. Corda and J. M. Stephenson, “An analytical estimation of the min-
imum and the maximum inductances of doubly-salient motor,” in Proc.
Int. Conf. Stepping Motors Systems, Leeds, U.K., Sep. 1979, pp. 50–59.
[2] A. Michaelides, C. Pollock, and C. Jolliffe, “Analytical computation of
minimum and maximum inductance in single and two phase switched
reluctance motor,” IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 2037–2040,
Mar. 1997.
[3] A. Radun, “Analytical calculation of the switched reluctance motor’s
unaligned inductance,” IEEE Tran. Magn., vol. 35, no. 6, pp. 4473–4481,
Nov. 1997.
Manuscript received February 5, 2005.