Construction of Synchronous Reluctance Machines With Combined Star-Pentagon Configuration Using Standard Three-Phase Stator Frames

Multiphase machines with a prime number of phases (five and seven) have shown better torque density than machines with other phase numbers. Unfortunately, these machines require a special stator design. Hence, this article proposes general rewinding techniques to obtain a five-phase winding from the existing standard three-phase stator frames. The proposed rewinding techniques are applied to construct a five-phase star-connected synchronous reluctance machine (SynRM 1) and a novel combined star-pentagon winding (SynRM 2). Simple mathematical formulations are introduced to compute the equivalent winding factor. The performance of five-phase SynRMs is analyzed using two-dimensional Ansys Maxwell transient simulations under the same copper volume for both healthy and faulty cases. SynRM 1 and 2 provide 6.56% and 13.35% higher torque compared to the three-phase SynRM at rated current and at optimal current angle. The torque ripple is decreased by 17% and 30%, respectively. Moreover, SynRM 1 and 2 offer a better performance at the faulty case; e.g., at one phase opened, the average torque of SynRM 1 and 2 is 82% and 108% higher compared to the three-phase SynRM. In addition, the torque ripple is reduced by about 63% and 81%. Finally, experimental results are done to validate the proposed winding techniques.