The design and performance of a self-starting 2-phase switched reluctance drive

The paper describes a design study for a 1 kW, two-phase 4/2 switched reluctance motor drive which was constructed at the University of Warwick, UK, to compete in the high efficiency, variable-speed drive market. The design of a ´primitive´ two-phase 4/2 motor is described, followed by the design of a self-starting rotor configuration. The static performance of the these two motors is examined using a commercially available finite element analysis package. Power converters that are suitable for the two-phase switched reluctance drive are evaluated in this paper, and the implications that the motor structure has on the power converter requirement are discussed.