Design and Experimental Evaluation of a 12 kW Large Synchronous Reluctance Motor and Control System for Elevator Traction

Abstract

Recently, a new type of motor, synchronous reluctance motor (SRM), has attracted wide attention from academia and industry because of its potential applications in fans, pumps, and elevator traction systems. Compared with traditional motors, these motors have lower eddy-current loss, less torque ripple, reduced noise, smaller moment of inertia, and faster dynamic response, and they provide a greater operating efficiency and safety and are simpler and easier to maintain. However, the ontology design and operation control of SRMs continue to be significant hurdles that must be overcome prior to practical implementation. In order to facilitate the practical application of SRMs in industry, at the invitation of an elevator company, we designed a large SRM for elevator traction. Herein, we describe the design of the proposed system and present a theoretical analysis of the system. Furthermore, we fabricate a real prototype and the corresponding control system and perform an experimental test under the rated operating conditions and 1.5× overload conditions in order to verify the SRM's performance. The results of the experimental testing were satisfactory and consistent with the theoretical calculations. At present, we have entered the stage of small-batch trial production and we expect to ultimately implement this novel design. Further, the approach to ontology design and operation control in this study can be used to inform the future development of novel SRMs.

Line-Start Synchronous Reluctance Motor With V-Shaped Rotor Laminations

“…Nowadays, the line-start synchronous reluctance motors (LS-SynRMs) are actively studied with the view to replace the three-phase SCIM, because they can meet the IE4 efficiency. The presence of air flux-barriers in the rotor multi-laminated structure scale downs the hysteresis and eddy current loss on the rotor of synchronous reluctance motors [4]. During steady state operation, the induced current in rotor cage bars is zero, and the rotor copper losses are inexistent.…”

“…During steady state operation, the induced current in rotor cage bars is zero, and the rotor copper losses are inexistent. The LS-SynRM has no rotor heating problem during synchronous operation, which improves the operating efficiency and safety of the motor [4]. Two major issues have been associated with LS-SynRMs, which include poor power factor and high torque pulsation.…”

Analytical Optimal Design of a Two-Phase Axial-Gap Transverse Flux Motor

“…In both cases, motor or generator, the gearbox is eliminated, resulting in a higher efficiency and reliability. Both features are shared with reluctance machines, so TFMs are strong candidates to inherit reluctance machinery applications such as elevators [23,24], industrial facilities [25], and home appliances [26].…”

Torque ripples reduction in a synchronous reluctance motor by rotor parameters optimization

“…High-efficiency synchronous reluctance motors (SynRM) can be a good option to replace with induction motors (IM) in fulfilling the customer's requirements. The efficiency of IM decreases sharply at low speeds in applications such as chillers and elevators (Oliveira and Ukil, 2018;Matsuo and Lipo, 1994;Li et al, 2020), which work partially in the full load mode and affect the efficiency of the machine. But SynRMs can work in high-efficiency points at different speeds.…”