EXTERNAL-ROTOR 6/10 SWITCHED RELUCTANCE MOTOR FOR AN ELECTRIC BICYCLE

Abstract

<p>As a cost-effective, healthy, and environmentally friendly personal mode of transportation, electric bicycles (E-bikes) are gaining an increasing market share from conventional bicycles and automobiles. Considering the legal rules in Ontario, Canada, a 500W motor makes the E-bike more attractive for travelling use. At the same time, the simple structure, high torque and power density, as well as the low cost of the switched reluctance machine (SRM) makes it a strong candidate for E-bikes.</p> <p>In this thesis, a 3-phase, external-rotor SRM with 6 stator poles and 10 rotor poles is designed for E-bike. The design of an external rotor arrangement of the 6-10 SRM topology has not previously been reported, hence it offers a new contribution to the published works. The machine design is initiated by the output power equation and is followed by a comprehensive finite element analysis (FEA). The external-rotor arrangement is chosen to facilitate ease of integration into the wheel hub structure of a typical pedal bicycle. The increasing rotor poles yield improved torque ripple reduction than more conventional (i.e. 6-4, 12-8 etc.) SRM design, which is an essential feature for low speed rider comfort.</p> <p>A new torque ripple reduction control scheme is investigated. Although the comparison shows that the torque sharing function has more positive result than angular position control with regards to torque ripple, this is at the expense of higher losses. Detailed thermal analysis ensures this machine is suitable to require no additional cooling system. The final machine design is experimentally tested via a full system prototype. Results highlight some limitation of the 2-D FEA in terms of the winding inductance calculation. Here, the end winding introduce more influence on short thickness machine, which will reduce its output power. However, its power-speed curve shows that this prototype machine has very strong overload ability.</p>