Low cost drive for switched reluctance motor with DC-assisted excitation
First Claim
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1. A power converter for a switched reluctance machine having at least one phase winding and a full-pitched auxiliary field winding, the power converter comprising:
- a DC bus; and
a switch having a first position and a second position, the switch being coupled to the phase winding and to the DC bus in such a manner that when the switch is in the first position the DC bus provides phase energization current to the phase winding; and
when the switch is in the second position the phase winding current dissipates through the full-pitched auxiliary field winding to provide energization current to the full-pitched auxiliary field winding.
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Abstract
A reluctance machine system including a reluctance machine having a rotor and a stator including at least one phase winding and a full pitch auxiliary field winding where constant currents are established in the auxiliary field winding to assist in the establishment of a magnetic field in the machine so as to improve the machine'"'"'s performance. A novel power converter uses residual energy remaining in the phase windings at the time the phase winding is de-energized (turned-off) to provide the constant energy for the auxiliary field winding.
125 Citations
25 Claims
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1. A power converter for a switched reluctance machine having at least one phase winding and a full-pitched auxiliary field winding, the power converter comprising:
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a DC bus; and a switch having a first position and a second position, the switch being coupled to the phase winding and to the DC bus in such a manner that when the switch is in the first position the DC bus provides phase energization current to the phase winding; and
when the switch is in the second position the phase winding current dissipates through the full-pitched auxiliary field winding to provide energization current to the full-pitched auxiliary field winding. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A reluctance machine system comprising:
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(a) a reluctance machine including; a stator defining a plurality of stator poles; a rotor defining a plurality of rotor poles, the rotor being mounted for rotation with respect to the stator; a plurality of phase windings, each phase winding including a plurality of winding coils, where each winding coil surrounds a stator pole; a full pitch auxiliary field winding, the auxiliary field winding surrounding a plurality of stator poles; and (b) a power converter coupled with the reluctance machine, the power converter including; a DC bus; a plurality of switches, each switch having a first position and a second position, each of the switches having one of the phase windings associated therewith wherein each of the switches is coupled to its associated phase winding and to the DC bus in such a manner that when the associated switch is in the first position the DC bus provides phase energization current to the phase winding, and when the switch is in the second position the phase winding current dissipates through the auxiliary field winding to provide energization current to the auxiliary field winding. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A power converter for a switched reluctance machine having at least one phase winding and a full-pitched auxiliary field winding, the power converter comprising:
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a DC power source; and means for selectively coupling the DC power source to the phase winding such that when the DC power source is coupled to the phase winding the DC power source provides phase energization current to the phase winding, and when the DC power source is decoupled from the phase winding the phase winding current dissipates through the full-pitched auxiliary field winding to provide energization current to the auxiliary field winding. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A method of energizing a full-pitched auxiliary field winding in a reluctance machine, the reluctance machine having at least one phase winding, the method comprising the acts of:
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energizing the phase winding by applying electrical current thereto; terminating the energization after a predetermined duration; and dissipating the phase winding energy through the full-pitched auxiliary field winding to energize the full-pitched auxiliary field winding. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25)
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Specification