Six-phase supply feasibility using a PM fractional-slot dual winding machine

The growing interest on fault tolerant drives requires new solutions avoiding the adoption of custom and expensive configurations. The machine with a dual three-phase winding is an interesting candidate. It is provided of two windings, each of them fed by one converter of half power. In the event of fault, one of the two three-phase windings (the faulty one) is disconnected and the machine is operated by means of the healthy winding only. With a proper mechanical and electrical arrangement the machine can be exactly a six-phase machine, obtaining higher performance during healthy conditions. The paper analyzes the feasibility of this dual winding configuration applied to a non-overlapped coils fractional-slot winding permanent magnet (PM) machine. The star of slots is applied to highlight the proper winding candidates. The more interesting windings are deeply analyzed.