On the usefulness of numeric field computations in the study of the switched reluctance motor's winding faults

The switched reluctance machine (SRM) is considered as one of the most inherently fault tolerant electrical machines. Unfortunately despite its robustness and reliability, faults (mainly of its windings and bearings) can appear during its operation. Therefore the SRM's condition monitoring is very important mainly in those safety-critical applications where unwanted shutdowns could have catastrophic effects both on human life and costs. The paper deals with the winding faults of the SRMs and their detection. The effects of winding faults are investigated in details by means of advanced numeric field analysis based on the finite element method (FEM). This numerical method is widely used in electrical engineering to solve complex electromagnetic problems. In the last part of the paper also the effectiveness of the flux differential winding fault detector is taken into study.