Winding inductance and performance prediction of a switched reluctance motor with an exterior-rotor considering the magnetic saturation

This paper deals with an analytical method to effectively calculate the inductance of an exterior-rotor switched reluctance motor (SRM), which evaluates the winding inductance of both the active section and the end section, accounting for the influence of core saturation. According to the inductance calculated by the analytical model, the flux linkage table and torque table can be established, and the steady state performance such as phase current, flux linkage, copper loss and core loss can be predicted. Effectiveness of this method is verified by the finite element method as well as by experimental results of a 12/8 SRM prototype.