Improvement of Starting Performance for Line-Start Permanent Magnet Motors by Winding Reconfiguration

Line-start permanent magnet (LSPM) machines have significant advantages in efficiency and power factor compared with regular induction motors; however, the poor starting torque and synchronization capability prevent the widespread of LSPM machines. In this article, winding reconfiguration methods are proposed to improve the starting performance and steady-state performance of LSPM machines. The turns-changing method is to increase asynchronous torque by reducing coil turns in starting, and the pole-changing method is to reduce and even eliminate the permanent magnet (PM) braking torque by changing the pole pair number of stator windings in the early starting period. Both of them can be adopted for an LSPM machine simultaneously to improve average torque in the starting stage. The starting performance is also compared between the turns-pole-changing LSPM machine and pole-increasing LSPM machine. Finite-element analysis is carried out to show the performance differences of LSPM machines using different starting strategies. A turns-changing LSPM machine is also manufactured and tested to validate the starting improvement.