Performance Enhancement of Line Start Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor With a Special Consequent Pole Rotor

This paper presents the development of line start permanent magnet synchronous motor (LSPMSM) employing a special consequent pole rotor. The proposed rotor structure uses both circumferentially magnetized spoke shape and radially magnetized arc shape magnets. The combination of spoke and arc shape is arranged to provide consequent magnetic poles. This new rotor structure improves the motor performance and consumes less magnet volume. The time-stepping finite element analysis (FEA) is used to evaluate transient and steady state performances. Extensive simulation studies are performed to establish the supremacy of proposed rotor structure over benchmarked spoke and some other known rotor structures. For experimental validation, prototypes of machine are built using (a) proposed magnet configuration, and (b) spoke type configuration having circumferentially magnetized magnets which is used as baseline motor. Rigorous experimental studies are carried out and it is observed that the proposed structure offers 4% improvement in the full load efficiency over the benchmarked spoke rotor LSPMSM yet by saving 10% magnet volume. Further, it is observed that the performance of the proposed machine is enhanced for direct online (DOL) as well as variable frequency drive (VFD) fed supply operation.