Switched reluctance electronic drive : reverse engineering to improve the quality and manufacturability of a commercial application : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Engineering in Electronics and Computer Systems Engineering at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

Abstract

This thesis presents a new prototype for a low maintenance and high quality switched reluctance electronic drive. Switched reluctance machine technology describes a modern brushless electric motor topology that is perhaps the most simple of all rotating electric machines. However, a switched reluctance machine requires power electronic switching and sophisticated digital control to be a viable competitor against alternative electronic machine topologies. Commercial switched reluctance machine systems are normally designed and built by pairing the motor and the electronic drive together. This pairing increases the difficulty and cost of quality improvement. The motivation for this research is to improve the quality within a commercial switched reluctance machine electronic drive. This particular electronic drive suffers from repeated common modes of failure. To achieve this, an accurate understanding of the interactions between functional components of the drive is crucial to reducing this complexity. This reduction in complexity can be achieved through appropriate separation of these functional components. Reverse engineering the electronic drive provides the detailed information required to design a component separated prototype solution. The complexity of the electronic drive has been reduced by separation into power and control functional components; these components are present on separate circuit boards. This has reduced the complexity of investigating each circuit in detail and for isolating the cause of failures within each circuit. This has also standardised the necessary connections required between the power and control components should one of the circuits need to be redesigned.