Energy conservation through improved design of three-phase squirrel cage induction motor using BF optimization algorithm

The recent emphasis on energy conversion demands an improvement of the efficiency of three-phase induction motors (IM). The high efficiency IM can be achieved by selecting optimum motor design parameters. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an efficient evolutionary approach for optimal design of three-phase IM. This paper presents a bacterial foraging (BF) algorithm for optimizing the IM design considering the active power loss effect. The BF algorithm incorporates a parameter-less penalty function method for handling the constraints. The proposed method has been applied to optimize the design of 5 HP motor. The performance of the BF algorithm is emphasized by comparing its results with those of the well-known stochastic optimization algorithms such as genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) as well as the conventional design method. The results show that the proposed BF algorithm is more effective and better than the other compared methods.