A Fault Tolerant Converter for a SRM Drive Based on a Nine-Switch Inverter with a Dual Output

Abstract

Switched Reluctance Machines (SRM) are a kind of electrical machines that have been adopted in many applications due to some interesting characteristics. One of the critical aspects associated to these machines is the required drive. In the case of a fault in one of its transistors the drive operation could become compromised. Thus, fault-tolerant converters are required to mitigate this problem. In this context, this paper presents a new power converter topology for a SRM drive. This topology intends to attenuate the problem of requiring many power semiconductors. Thus, a topology characterized by a reduced amount of power semiconductors is presented in this paper. The proposed topology is based on an inverter with a dual output taking advantage from the aspect that in the SRM the winding current can be inverted without affecting its operation. Besides the description of the behavior and characteristics, the theoretical assumptions are verified by several tests. These tests are done with the system in normal and fault-tolerant operation and were carried out by computer simulations.