Electromagnetic torque of switched-reluctance motors and its correlation with the magnetic system geometry

A switched-reluctance machine, being the primary component of a switched-reluctance drive, is a promising yet understudied electromechanical energy converter. Any industry can potentially expand its use of these machines. Creating a globally competitive, high-performance, and cost-effective switched-reluctance drive requires scientifically solid data on how the geometric variables of the magnetic system correlate with, and affect, the average electromagnetic torque. The goal hereof is to find how strongly this average value correlates with the geometric variables of the active machine components, and whether this correlation is positive or negative. Correlation analysis identified how strongly the structural parameters under consideration affected the average electromagnetic torque. The numerical value of the latter was calculated in MATLAB interfacing with the magnetic field calculation and visualization software FEMM 4.2. A Monte Carlo algorithm-based stochastic method was applied to find the numerical values of torque. Research effort described herein does demonstrate a correlation between the structural elements of the magnetic system and the values of the electromagnetic torque; it also shows the strength of such correlation.