Study on Line-Start Permanent Magnet Assistance Synchronous Reluctance Motor for Improving Efficiency and Power Factor

In order to improve the efficiency, a line-start synchronous reluctance motor (LS-SynRM) is studied as an alternative to an induction motor (IM). However, because of the saliency characteristic of SynRM, LS-SynRM have a limited power factor. Therefore, to improve the efficiency and power factor of electric motors, we propose a line-start permanent magnet assistance synchronous reluctance motor (LS-PMA-SynRM) with permanent magnets inserted into LS-SynRM. IM and LS-SynRM are selected as reference models, whose performances are analyzed and compared with that of LS-PMA-SynRM using a finite element analysis. The performance of LS-PMA-SynRM is analyzed considering the position and length of its permanent magnet, as well as its manufacture. The final model of LS-PMA-SynRM is designed for improving the efficiency and power factor of electric motors compared with LS-SynRM. To verify the finite element analysis (FEA) result, the final model is manufactured, experiments are conducted, and the performance of LS-PMA-SynRM is verified.