Theoretical Research And Prototype Design Of High-temperature Superconducting Reluctance Motor

High Temperature Superconductor (HTS) reluctance motors have higher output power, power factor and efficiency than traditional reluctance motors at the same size and weight. However, the HTS reluctance motor is still strange to many researchers in China.The paper advanced some principles on how to improve the performance of the HTS reluctance motors. Conforming to these principles, a HTS reluctance motor of 150 W is designed.By use of the Finite Element Method (FEM) and the Kim model for critical state of type II superconductors, the paper demonstrated how to compute the magnetic field and synchronizing reactance of the designed model. The method can be applied to generate HTS reluctance motors. Furthermore, the paper studied how to analyze the working performance of HTS reluctance motors by means of synchronizing reactance curves.The paper compared the HTS reluctance motor with the traditional reluctance motor. It's seen that, when the sizes and structures are identical, the HTS reluctance motor possesses higher ratio of Xd to Xq than the traditional reluctance motor. And the higher Xd/Xq leads to the higher output torque, power factor and efficiency. The operation stability of the HTS motor also excels the traditional reluctance motor of the same size and structure.The paper also compared several types of HTS reluctance motors which have different structures. Some conclusions are drawn: ALA (axially-Laminated Anisotropic) HTS reluctance motor possesses higher output torque than reactive-inside HTS reluctance motor. The ALA HTS reluctance motor has better steady working performance than reactive-inside HTS reluctance motor when the output power is high. It's also seen that the thin-zebra ALA HTS reluctance motor excels the thick-zebra ALA HTS reluctance motor in synchronizing performance.