IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 49, NO.

5, MAY 2013 2359

Magnetic Circuit Modeling of Brushless Doubly-Fed Machines

With Induction and Reluctance Rotors
Min-Fu Hsieh , I-Hsien Lin , and David Dorrell
Dept. of Systems and Naval Mechatronic Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, 701, Tainan, Taiwan
School of Electrical, Mechanical and Mechatronic Systems, University of Technology Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia

This paper presents a magnetic circuit modeling (MCM) technique for analysis of the brushless doubly-fed machine (BDFM). Two
rotor types are considered: the induction type and the reluctance type. The flux density in both the stator and rotor can be calculated
by the developed MCM. This is particularly beneficial to the BDFM with the induction rotor since the generated rotor currents may
saturate the rotor or stator and this is difficult to foresee at the design stage due to the complex flux patterns in the machine. A coupling
factor is proposed to determine the flux coupling between the stator and rotor teeth of the induction type of BDFM. Saturation is also
considered in the MCM. Finite element analysis is used to verify the analytical results.
Index Terms—Brushless doubly fed machines (BDFM), induction rotor, magnetic circuit model (MCM), reluctance rotor.

I. INTRODUCTION [7]–[9]. An equivalent magnetic circuit was proposed for the

doubly-fed doubly-salient machine in [10] but this is limited to

T HE Doubly-Fed Machine (DFM) is simple and widely specific pole-slot combinations. In [11], the flux produced by
used in renewable energy generation in applications stator winding currents was calculated for each stator tooth of
such as wind turbines; it is essentially a wound rotor induction a BDFM using a magnetic circuit model by taking saturation
generator. The control winding is on the rotor so that brushes into account. However, the rotor was not considered. A design
are required. The Brushless Doubly Fed Machine (BDFM) approach for the permanent magnet (PM) machine, based on
has increased robustness because there are no brushes. This is MCM, was discussed in [12], where a segmented PM model
achieved by combining the power winding (connected to the was proposed.
grid) and control winding (usually connected to the grid via To calculate the flux density of the rotor teeth in a BDFIM,
a converter formed from a back-to-back inverter) in the same the relative position of the stator teeth and rotor teeth should be
stator frame. Recently, research has focused on two types of considered so that the coupling behavior between the stator and
rotors: the Brushless Doubly Fed Induction Machine (BDFIM) rotor teeth can be modeled. Therefore, a flux coupling factor is
[1]–[3] and the Brushless Doubly Fed Reluctance Machine proposed in this paper along with the MCM developed for the
(BDFRM) [4]–[6]. For the induction type, the relationship be- BDFM. Two rotor types are considered: the induction type and
tween the electric loadings of the power and control windings the reluctance type. The two types of BDFMs discussed in this
was discussed in [1] and the relative amplitudes of the magnetic paper both possess 4 and 8 poles for the control and power wind-
loading in the two windings assessed. The rotor has a nested ings respectively. An existing BDFM [13] is used to demon-
loop winding structure and links the stator in a transformer strate the developed model.
action. An analytical method for the BDFM was proposed in
[2] and [3], which is mainly based on equivalent circuits of II. MACHINE MODELING
the rotor and stator; the circuit is valid for all operating modes
including synchronous mode. For the reluctance rotor, the A. BDFM
flux density with air-gap permeance was calculated in [4] for The BDFM is a machine that is in development where the
various rotor types: salient pole rotor, axially laminated rotor power and control windings are combined in the same stator
and the segmented rotor. This is used to calculate the MMF. In frame. The machine then has a converter that has a reduced
[5], the flux density harmonics were calculated from the MMF rating which only supplies the control winding. This reduces
and ideal coupling factors. the cost. Current excitation is usually considered since cur-
Magnetic Circuit Modeling (MCM) is the focus of this paper rent control is applied to the control winding. Current on the
because it has the advantages of rapid calculation compared power winding or rotor is not directly controlled so can cause
to finite element analysis (FEA) since the model consists of saturation.
simple circuit elements and expressions. This has been studied The frequencies of the EMFs in the stator are a function of
for various types of machines [7]–[11]. Models of induction the rotor speed so that the machines have synchronous machine
machines and permanent-magnet machines were developed in characteristics. The actual speed of the BDFM through experi-
ments was discussed in [8]. The frequencies are linked by

Manuscript received November 11, 2012; revised January 12, 2013; accepted (1)
January 16, 2013. Date of current version May 07, 2013. Corresponding author:
M.-F. Hsieh (e-mail: [email protected]).
where is a rotational velocity (rad/sec) and the subscripts ,
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. and represent the control frequency, rotor velocity and grid fre-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2013.2242459 quency; is the rotor pole number. Other pole number arrange-

0018-9464/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE

2360 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 49, NO. 5, MAY 2013

TABLE I
MAIN MACHINE DIMENSIONS (BDFIM AND BDFRM) [UNIT: mm]

Fig. 1. BDFIM [4] and BDFRM [13]: (a) 48-slot stator and 36-slot rotor,
(b) details of slots from the rectangular area in (a), (c) 48-slot stator and 6-pole
segmented reluctance rotor and (d) details of the slots from the rectangular area
in (c).

ments are possible although this can cause unbalanced magnetic

pull problems [6].
As already mentioned, in both the BDFIM and BDFRM
studied here, the stators have 4 and 8 poles for the control and
power windings, respectively. The BDFIM rotor has an isolated
set of windings (there are rotor 36 slots so there are 18 isolated
short-circuit coils with a slot pitch of 7 slots and 18 turns in
a lap formation) which creates a conduit for stator winding
linkage between both the 4 and 8 pole stator windings. The
BDFRM is formed from a ducted 6-pole segmented reluctance
rotor with radial laminations (which is similar to a synchronous Fig. 2. curve of CSC35CS550.
reluctance machine rotor). This creates air-gap permeance
modulation so that, again, the two stator windings are linked.
The dimensions of the two BDFMs (both with a D180 frame)
are shown in Fig. 1 and Table I. An electric steel B/H curve
(CSC35CS550 by China Steel Corp.) is used to represent the
material characteristics of the stator and rotor core (Fig. 2).

B. Magnetic Circuit Modeling of BDFIM

The rotor and stator of a BDFIM should have different
numbers of slots (e.g., the present case) to preventing cogging. Fig. 3. Alignment between stator and rotor.
Therefore, in the MCM, the flux coupling between a stator
tooth and the neighboring rotor teeth depends on their relative
position. To include the MMF from the rotor current in the the same stator tooth. Therefore, the MMF of the -th rotor slot
MCM, a coupling factor is defined to model the flux conductors contributing to the -th stator tooth (denoted )
coupled between the -th stator tooth and -th rotor tooth. As can be defined in the MCM using as follows:
shown in Fig. 3, can be expressed as
(4)
(2) where is the number of turns of the rotor winding and is
the rotor current. The -th stator tooth may have various align-
(3) ment conditions with the -th rotor tooth. If the two teeth align
completely, then . This is denoted “alignment”. It
and is the stator slot pitch, is the stator slot number, is is called “misalignment” otherwise. can be treated as a
the rotor slot number, is the angular section of the -th rotor function of , i.e., the stator tooth number.
slot MMF contributing to the -th stator tooth and is the The constructed MCM is shown in Fig. 4. is the -th
angular section of the -th rotor slot MMF contributing to stator yoke reluctance, is the -th stator teeth reluctance,
HSIEH et al.: MAGNETIC CIRCUIT MODELING OF BRUSHLESS DOUBLY-FED MACHINES 2361

Fig. 4. Magnetic circuit of the stator, air gap and rotor inside the BDFIM.

is the MMF due to the stator current, is the air gap reluc-
tance and and are the leakage reluctance of the stator
and rotor teeth, respectively; is the MMF of the rotor teeth.
The -th rotor tooth reluctance in Fig. 4 can be expressed
Fig. 5. Magnetic circuits of BDFRM: (a) shortest segment, (b) equivalent cir-
as: cuit of (a), (c) other segments and (d) equivalent circuit of (c).

for misalignment
(5)
for alignment For other rotor segments conditions, the MCM loop can be
depicted in Figs. 5(c) and (d). The reluctances on the
where subscript indicates the misalignment condition and
rotor can be expressed as
denotes the -th rotor tooth.
The stator and rotor tooth flux for the particular MCM loop
shown in Fig. 4 can thus be simultaneously calculated. At this
(8)
stage, the MCM is assumed to be linear so that superposition can
be applied (saturation will be discussed later). Although only
where the subscript indicates conditions other than those
one MCM loop is shown in Fig. 4, in the developed model, the
in Fig. 5(a), and is the corresponding segment reluctance.
flux in all the stator and rotor teeth can be calculated together.
It should be noted that increases with the segment length.
Due to the various alignment conditions, the actual flux on
The proposed reluctance components and the MCM of both
a single rotor tooth may involve two MCM loops. Referring to
BDFMs are then coded in MATLAB. Stator flux density cal-
Fig. 3, the relationship between the rotor and stator tooth flux
culated in the MCM will be compared with that from the FEA
can be further expressed with
simulations.
Saturation may occur and this is considered in this paper.
for misalignment When the flux and flux density on the stator and rotor teeth are
(6)
for alignment calculated, the computer program incorporating the MCM will
check the material operating point on the B/H curve in Fig. 2 and
where is the -th rotor flux and is the -th stator
the associated permeability simultaneously. If the two condi-
tooth flux. Thus, the flux on all the rotor and stator teeth can be
tions (the operating point and permeability) do not match, a new
obtained.
permeability value will be assigned then the flux and material
operating point are recalculated until convergence is achieved.
C. Magnetic Circuit Modeling of BDFRM This iterative process has been reported in [11] and [12] and is
not be detailed here. Thus, saturation is included in the MCM.
The reluctance components of the segmented reluctance rotor
are illustrated in Fig. 5, where two conditions, the shortest seg-
ment and others, are presented for each rotor pole. The MCM on III. RESULT DISCUSSION
the shortest segment of the reluctance rotor is shown in Fig. 5(a).
To make this clear, an equivalent circuit is given in Fig. 5(b), The calculated winding excitation current is compared with
where the rotor reluctances are given by FEA simulation. The FEA was carried out using ANSOFT
Maxwell. The flux density in the two machines is observed for
(7) verification. The 4-pole and 8-pole 3-phase windings in each
machine are wye connected. Hence, the current flow is set to
where the subscript indicates the “shortest” segment, 1 A in two phases and 2 A in the third phase in the opposite
is the leakage reluctance and is the shortest seg- direction to represent a snap-shot in time. The excitation current
ment reluctance. for each isolated layer loop in a rotor slot is set to be 0.9 A on
2362 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 49, NO. 5, MAY 2013

IV. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has developed a magnetic circuit model to aid the
design of the BDFIM and BDFRM. The MCM has includes flux
produced by the rotor current. The calculated results were com-
pared with FEA and they show good correlation. The BDFRM
simulations give better results than the BDFIM. Also, the effect
of rotor induction current is included.
Further research will focus on the development of a method
for coupling the equivalent circuits with the MCM to help di-
rectly calculate the current. Accurate reluctance models need
to be developed to allow inclusion of other kinds of rotor and
stator topology. The rotor reluctance linkages between the stator
winding in the BDFRM are not straightforward. This would
allow the flux density distributions to be calculated from the ac-
tual operating conditions and increase the flexibility of the ma-
chine modeling method.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported in part by Taiwan National
Science Council under Contracts NSC 101-2628-E-006-
016-MY3 and 101-2923-M-007-003. The National Center for
High-Performance Computing is gratefully acknowledged for
providing computing service.

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