Design Specifications:

The comparative study of different slot-pole combinations towards the performance of each SynRM were done by
designing each machine according to the following design specifications.
TABLE I
SYNRMS DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS
Parameter Value Parameter Value
Power 1 kW Rated speed 900 rpm
Voltage (L-L) 208 V Power factor 0.8
Efficiency 85% Saliency ratio 9

Machine Structure:

In this study, the stators of a 24, 36, and 48 slot-4 pole SynRMs are designed based on the conventional electric and
magnetic loading principles to support maximum power factor. Total length of slot openings of each stator was kept
as a constant as 36 slot stator consisting slot openings of two times the conductor size. The design of the rotor structures
are somewhat challenging using analytical methods due to their highly an-isotropic structure. Therefore FE analysis
based method was used to design the rotor structures. There are two types of rotor structures used in the analysis,
which are constant air-gap (normal) rotor and cut-off rotor. A four flux barrier rotor with a Transversally Laminated
Anisotropic (TLA) structure is used in either case. Full rotor of the normal rotor and the cut-off rotor SynRM
accompanied by the d- and q-axis flux paths are shown in Fig. 1.

q-axis q-axis

d-axis d-axis

Fig. 1. SynRM structure with a (a) normal rotor (b) cut-off rotor.

The rotor structure is fully generated based on a co-ordinate system. That`s make it easier when it comes to
optimization procedure. Firstly, the approach discussed in (site the reza paper) was used to calculate the q-axis flux
carrier and barrier widths to support the kwq of 1. This calculation is dynamically done during the optimization by
varying the rotor slot pitch controller angle (β). D-axis parameters of the rotor are defined to obtain dynamic flux
barrier angle (γ) and variable rotor pitch angles. The purpose of providing such degree of freedom is to dynamically
arrange flux carriers with the flux lines. A normal rotor structure of the SynRMs used in the design optimization steps
accompanied by the design variables and important coordinates are shown in Fig. 2.

[kS1d , R0 2   kS1d  ]
2

q-axis

[S 1d , 2P1 - S 1d ]
W4d
γ S4d
W3d
[P1, P1] γ S3d
W2d
γ [2P1- S1d, S1d] S2d
W1d
S1d d-axis
[0, 0]
[ R0 2   kS1d  , kS1d ]
2

Referring to Fig. 2, width of the flux carriers along d-axis are denoted by Snd and barriers are denoted by Wnd. Subscript
‘nd’ indicates the corresponding segment number along d-axis. Total space available for the flux barriers and carriers
is mainly dependent of β and γ, which is directly controlled by d-axis barrier angle control parameter (k). Each flux
barrier is defined as the enclosed area of two defined co-ordinate sets (only the first set of co-ordinates are shown).
Each co-ordinate set is calculated based on respective reference point calculated for the flux line on the q-axis defined
as [Pn, Pn] (in this case [P1, P1]) and k. Barriers were filleted at each end to make them more mechanically robust.

Optimization:

At this point we have 6 different un-optimized rotor structures for 24, 36 and 48-slot machines. Prior to optimization
it`s vital to identify the physical limitation of each parameter in terms of practicality. The total of flux carriers and
barriers along d-axis has a maximum value which is a dependent of β and k. For practical reasons, a single slope (m)
was calculated and used for each flux barrier defined by (1). Slope is effectively controlling the γ. Minimum values
of d-axis flux barrier widths (Wnd) and carrier widths (Snd) are determined by (2) and (3). It is worth noting that, for
cut-off rotor structure there`s no 5th flux carrier along d-axis. Maximum limits of each variable is carefully chosen to
obtain full variation of the flux barriers around the rotor.

(1  k )S1d
m (1)
(2 P1  S1d )  R0 2  (kS1d ) 2

2m
Wnd  ( P2n  P2n-1 ) ; n = 1, 2, 3, 4 (2)
m 1

2m
S (n+1)d  ( P2n+1  P2n ) ; n = 1, 2, 3, 4 (3)
m 1

Since the rotor diameters for each case are close to each other, same design variable ranges were used. The feasible
design variable ranges are shown in Table II.
TABLE II
SYNRMS PARAMETERS AND RATINGS
Parameter Value Parameter Value
Power 1 kW Rated speed 900 rpm
Voltage (L-L) 208 V Stator outer diameter 179 mm
Efficiency 85% Stator inner diameter 97 mm
Power factor 0.8 Stack length 71 mm

Each parameter is dynamically changed during the optimization. β was changed from 40 to 110 which effectively helps
the optimizer to find the minimum torque ripple possible. Similarly k varied from 0.625 to 3 to have dynamic γ ranging
from 1200 to 1400 approximately. Ranges for the other parameters are as stated in the Table II.

Objective Function:

A combined objective function (COF) (6) was used to find a compromise design with minimized torque ripple and
maximized saliency ratio, while supporting the required torque.
2
min(0.2    0   0.2 Tavg  T0   0.6 Trip  Trip0  )
2 2
(4)

Prior to the COF it`s important to identify the maximum saliency and minimum torque ripple for each and every rotor
structure. That can be simply obtain by running two separate optimizations for saliency maximization and torque
ripple minimization for each of these machines. In equation (6) ξ, Tavg and Trip are calculated at each simulation steps
whereas ξ0, T0 and Trip0 are pre-determined values. Weights in front of each part are carefully selected proportionally
to the sensitivity of each parameter towards the outcome of the expression.

FE-based Performance Prediction of the Designed SynRMs for different rotor structures.

Under this section the performance analysis of each and every rotor structure generated during COF optimization for
different spp numbers as well as normal and cut-off rotor structures are analyzed. The results generated in each
optimization are plotted against ξ, T and Trip. The best selected candidate is marked in red.
 (a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f)

Fig. 3. Saliency ratio vs average torque vs torque ripple variation at base speed for (a) COF-normal rotor (spp=2), (b) COF-cut off rotor (spp=2),
(c) COF-normal rotor (spp=3), (d) COF-cut off rotor (spp=3), (e) COF-normal rotor (spp=4) and (f) COF-cut off rotor (spp=4).

As can be seen in the Fig. 3, different ranges are selected accordingly for axes to represent the actual variation of
values. The minimum T values appear in spp=2 for normal rotor (9Nm-9.8Nm) and cut-off rotor (8Nm-9.5Nm)
structures respectively. For spp=3 and spp=4, both normal and cut-off rotor structures showed T values ranging from
9Nm to 10.7Nm. And more specifically spp=3 normal rotor structure showed consistent T values around 10.6Nm,
which is same as the T value to produce 1kW of output power at base speed. In terms of the Trip variation of different
rotor structures, normal rotor structures of spp=2, 3, 4 shows values ranging from 10% to 70% mostly and spp=3 even
has a rotor with a lower Trip value of 9% and spp=4 of an 8% respectively. On the other hand cut-off rotor structures
for spp=2, 3, 4 showed torque ripple values ranging averagely from 20% to 80% and even to 90% in spp=3. Generally
a higher saliency value is followed also by a higher torque ripple value. Since the power factor of this machine is
greatly related to ξ, in order to get a lower Trip some compromisations had to be done. The T value also considered
during the selection as it`s a dependent of (Ld-Lq). That`s why any of the selected candidates neither have the highest
ξ nor the lowest Trip value of the respective optimization. The Table III shows the operating properties of selected best
candidates of each optimization.
TABLE III
OPERATING PROPERTIES OF THE OPTIMIZED SYNRMS
Normal rotor Cut off rotor
SPP 2 3 4 2 3 4
ξ 8.08 8.57 8.49 8.36 8.72 8.69
Tavg (N.m) 9.32 10.6 10.44 9.35 10.63 10.45
Trip (%) 29.1 12 19.8 35.7 24 29.5