Fault tolerant permanent magnet machine drives

This paper describes experimental results from a permanent magnet machine, which has been designed with fault tolerance in mind. The main thrust of this contribution is concerned with demonstrating that the electromagnetic performance can be achieved. The machine must be designed to limit fault currents resulting from a winding or switching device short circuits to a level within steady state thermal limits. Penalties must be considered in terms of machine volume and power switching device rating, but it is shown that these penalties are not severe.