The Air Barriers Optimal Geometry Determination for a Synchronous Reluctance Motor Outer Rotor

The article is devoted to research on the design of an external synchronous reluctance motor without a magnetic rotor with a three-phase stator winding. Today, such motors are widely used in the creation of low-power vehicles with autonomous electrical power. In the design of the outer rotor, there are no expensive permanent magnets and a short-circuited winding, which leads to a decrease in its mass, moment of inertia and to the absence of electrical losses in the rotor winding. Since the source of electrical energy of such vehicles is a battery, the characteristics of traction motors are subject to increased requirements for their efficiency: high efficiency, high torque. Therefore, the issues of creating motors with the highest possible technical characteristics are very relevant. Variants of configurations of air barriers of the outer rotor are analyzed. The task was set to carry out computational modeling of various variants of shapes and sizes of air barriers of the rotor. The optimization criterion for solving this problem was to obtain the required torque on the rotor, the maximum efficiency, and the smallest value of the rotor vibrations, which are caused by magnetic interactions. Calculations by the finite element method were carried out, energy characteristics, efficiency, rotor vibrations were determined for three configurations of air barriers. The proposed algorithm for designing such motors makes it possible to determine the optimal design of the outer rotor of a synchronous reluctance motor and obtain high performance.