Design and Validation of a High-Efficiency Synchronous Reluctance Motor

In recent years, high efficiency motors have received extensive attention from both industry and academia. Among all these motors, synchronous reluctance motors (SynRMs) are favored, thanks to their features of high torque density, high reliability, low cost and lack of rotor Joule losses. This paper aims to present the implementation methods of SynRMs to reach high efficiency. To start with, an overview of the existing methods to realize high efficiency SynRMs is given, in terms of saliency ratio, stator copper loss, iron losses, novel topologies and new material applications. Then, the above techniques are combined to improve the efficiency of an existing 2.2kW SynRM. It is concluded that the SynRMs is capable of achieving IE4 efficiency which is of great potential for industrial applications.