Analysis and performance of variable reluctance (VR) torque coupler

A simple analytical method is developed to calculate the torque of PM/VR (hybrid) torque coupler, referred as variable reluctance (VR) coupler. The performance of VR torque coupler is compared with a PM coupler under idealised conditions. The nonlinear effects such as leakage, fringing and saturation are ignored. A series of VR couplers were experimentally tested and their performance reported.