Optimum Design of a SRM Using FEM and PSO

Nowadays the use of the Switched Reluctance Motors (SRMs) has been considerably increased in various home and industrial applications. Despite of many advantages of this type of motors, such as simple structure, low cost, and high reliability, the main disadvantage of them is the generation of high torque pulsation. This paper presents a novel method to optimize a typical SRM such that the torque ripple reaches its minimum value. Meanwhile, the torque average and the motor efficiency become maximum. It is shown that the pole width to the pole pitch ratio, for both stator and rotor poles, have a great impact on the torque ripple and torque average. Finite Element Method (FEM) is used to obtain the torque ripple, the torque average and the motor efficiency for a large number of ratios. A functional relationship is developed between the input and the output parameters. Normalized summation of the torque ripple minus the torque average and the efficiency is considered to be the cost function, which must be minimized. Then, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used to find the optimum ratio of pole width to pole pitch, for both stator and rotor. The optimum design is verified by FEM.