Switched Reluctance Motor Drives: Fundamentals to Applications

Electric motors are the largest consumer of electric energy and they play a critical role in the growing market for electrification. Due to their simple construction, switched reluctance motors (SRMs) are exceptionally attractive for the industry to respond to the increasing demand for high-efficiency, high-performance, and low-cost electric motors with a more secure supply chain.

is a comprehensive textbook covering the major aspects of switched reluctance motor drives. It provides an overview of the use of electric motors in the industrial, residential, commercial, and transportation sectors. It explains the theory behind the operation of switched reluctance motors and provides models to analyze them. The book extensively concentrates on the fundamentals and applications of SRM design and covers various design details, such as materials, mechanical construction, and controls.

Acoustic noise and vibration is the most well-known issue in switched reluctance motors, but this can be reduced significantly through a multidisciplinary approach. These methodologies are explained in two chapters of the book. The first covers the fundamentals of acoustic noise and vibration so readers have the necessary tools to analyze the problems and explains the surface waves, spring-mass models, forcing harmonics, and mode shapes that are utilized in modeling and analyzing acoustic noise and vibration. The second applies these fundamentals to switched reluctance motors and provides examples for determining the sources of any acoustic noise in switched reluctance motors.

In the final chapter two SRM designs are presented and proposed as replacements for permanent magnet machines in a residential HVAC application and a hybrid-electric propulsion application. It also shows a high-power and compact converter design for SRM drives.

Berker Bilgin (IEEE S'09-M’12-SM’16) is the Research Program Manager of the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Hybrid Powertrain Program in McMaster Institute for Automotive Research and Technology (MacAUTO) at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is managing many multidisciplinary projects on the design of electric machines, power electronics, electric motor drives, and electrified powertrains. Dr. Bilgin was the General Chair of the 2016 IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference and Expo (ITEC'16). He is now pursuing his MBA degree in DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University.

Ali Emadi (IEEE S’98-M’00-SM’03-F’13) received the B.S. (1995) and M.S. (1997) degrees in electrical engineering with highest distinction from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. He also received his Ph.D. degree (2000) in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA. He is currently the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Hybrid Powertrain and a Professor in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Mechanical Engineering (ME) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The CERC appointment receives up to $10 million in federal funding over seven years in addition to significant support from the university. The appointment also includes a new hybrid vehicle research facility that is part of the new 80,000 square-foot McMaster Automotive Resource Center (MARC) at McMaster Innovation Park. He recently served as the Director of the McMaster Institute for Automotive Research and Technology (MacAUTO) from 2011-2015. Before joining McMaster University, Dr. Emadi was the Harris Perlstein Endowed Chair Professor of Engineering and Director of the Electric Power and Power Electronics Center and Grainger Laboratories at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, where he established research and teaching facilities as well as courses in power electronics, motor drives, and vehicular power systems. In addition, Dr. Emadi was the Founder, Chairman, and President of Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies, Inc. (HEVT) – a university spin-off company of Illinois Tech.

James Weisheng Jiang received his bachelor’s degree in vehicle engineering from the College of Automotive Engineering, Jilin University, China in 2009. He worked as a research assistant at the Clean Energy Automotive Engineering Research Center, Tongji University, China from 2009 to 2011. He got his PhD degree from McMaster University in 2016. He is currently a principal research engineer at McMaster Automotive Resource Centre (MARC). He has designed and implemented a 60 kW 24/16 switched reluctance motor for traction purpose in HEV. He has also been involved in designs and implementations of traction motors with interior permanent and ferrite magnets. He has also been working on NVH analysis for switched reluctance motors and permanent magnet synchronous motors.