Characterization of axially laminated anisotropic-rotor synchronous reluctance motors

The effects of accounting for material anisotropy on the energy performance characteristics of the axially laminated anisotropic (ALA) rotor synchronous reluctance motor (SynRM) are presented. These effects are evaluated from the simulation of indirectly coupled magnetic field-electric circuit models which fully account for magnetic saturation and space harmonics, to a time variant state space model describing the SynRM drive system. Furthermore, the simulation method fully accounts for strong "material" and "structural" anisotropy exhibited in the curved flux barrier regions of the rotor ALA-rotor SynRM. The simulation results are validated by direct measurement of inductances and energy conversion performance of a 100 kW prototype ALA-rotor synchronous reluctance machine.