Electromagnetic design of a new hybrid-excited flux-switching machine for fault-tolerant operations

In this paper, a new hybrid-excited flux-switching (HEFS) machine is proposed with the outer-rotor configuration, which possesses the distinct feature of fault-tolerant operation. Comparing with the conventional permanent-magnet (PM) machine, it combines merits of flux control, high mechanical integrity, and low-cost. Furthermore, its fault-tolerant feature ensures its continuous operation in the event of winding faults. Hence, a new 12/10-pole HEFS machine is designed and implemented in this paper. By using time-stepping finite element method, open circuit (OC) fault and short circuit (SC) faults on the armature winding are investigated in the proposed machine for the fault-tolerant operation. The phase-current reconfiguration and flux control are applied for the remediation of the OC fault, while the SC faults is remedied by the phase-current reconfiguration merely. Both approaches demonstrate their good performances for the fault-tolerant operation.