A Scalable Analytical Model for Printed Multi-Barrier Reluctance Rotor

This paper deals with the implementation of a magnetic circuit which describes synchronous reluctance rotors, with the aim of quickly analyzing rotor geometries with a large number of flux barriers. The analytical model is based on a linear magnetic circuit. The stator winding is modeled as set of magnetomotive force generators distributed around the air-gap. The rotor flux barriers and the air-gap are represented by magnetic reluctances whose values derive from the rotor geometry, that is the barrier length and width, barrier angles and air-gap thickness. Each flux barrier introduces a well-defined number of magnetic reluctances in the magnetic circuit. Moreover, the magnetic circuit of a rotor with n flux barriers can be obtained starting from the magnetic circuit of a rotor with n - 1 flux barriers. Therefore, a scalable process can be implemented to easily obtain the magnetic circuit of a rotor with a wide number of flux barriers. The use of Additive Manufacturing techniques to produce magnetic cores allows a huge freedom in the realization of complex geometries than traditional manufacturing processes. For this reason, the model proposed in this paper has been developed to easily analyze and compute the performance of a multi-barrier synchronous rotor. Finally, the proposed model has been tested on an actual prototype, a reluctance rotor with five flux barriers per pole.