Analysis and Performance Evaluation of a Novel Adjustable Speed Drive with a Homopolar-Type Rotor

Abstract

The use of a magnetic adjustable speed drive is a popular choice in industrial settings due to its efficient operation, vibration isolation, low maintenance, and overload protection. Most conventional magnetic adjustable speed drives use various forms of the permanent magnets (PMs). Due to the PMs, this type of machine has continuous free-wheeling losses in the form of hysteresis and induced eddy currents. In recent years, the homopolar-type rotor has been widely used in high-speed machines, superconducting machines, and in the application of flywheel energy storage. This study proposes a new application of the homopolar-type rotor. A novel adjustable speed drive with a homopolar-type rotor (HTR-ASD), which has obvious advantages (no brush, no permanent magnet, and no mechanical flux regulation device), is designed and analyzed in this study. Its speed and torque can be adjusted only by adjusting the excitation current. Firstly, in this study, the structure, operation principles, and flux-modulated mechanism of the HTR-ASD are studied. The homopolar-type rotor has a special three-dimensional magnetic circuit structure with the same pole. The 3D-FEM is usually used to calculate its parameters, which is time consuming. In this study, an analytical method is developed to solve this issue. To analytically calculate the torque characteristics, the air gap magnetic flux density, and the winding inductance parameter, the equivalent circuit and the air gap permeance are researched to simplify the analysis. Then, the key parameters of the HTR-ASD are calculated. Finally, the performance of the HTR-ASD is comparatively studied using the analytical method and finite element method, and a comparison of the results is carried out. The comparison indicates that the analytical method is in good agreement with simulation results, and that it is very helpful for designing homopolar-type rotor machines. According to the analysis, the proposed adjustable speed drive displays a great performance in relation to the operating characteristics of a flexible mechanical speed drive.