Intern-turn short-circuit fault detection in switched reluctance motor utilizing MCPT test

Abstract

The performance of the Switched Reluctance Motors (SRMs) in different applications has widely been investigated by various studies. The research areas are oriented toward fault effects on electromagnetics behavior and its diagnosis for operation improvement. One of the most observed faults is the stator winding short circuit which may lead to produce the unbalanced distribution of magnetic field. In this paper, it is attempted to firstly introduce the conventional SRM and new structure of double stator SRM (DSSRM). Secondly, by means of three dimensional finite element method (3D FEM) the effects of short-circuit faults (SCF) on motor profiles are investigated, in which static and dynamic behaviors of the motor in healthy and several SCF conditions are evaluated. A new method namely as maximum current point tracking (MCPT) is introduced to evaluate the SCF in SRM, so an index is proposed to detect the numbers of shorted turns in faulty phase. The overall outcomes highlight the advantages of using this method and index which is general enough to be applied to any type of SRM.