I want to build simple reluctance motor for education purpose. I have couple of small 3 Phase AC Induction motor with 24 slot stator lap winded for 4 pole design.
I want to convert it to reluctance motor, for that I will cast rotor of silicon steel with slots according to ( 24/16 ) design or similar. But as I do not have much winding experience, I want to reuse the existing winding on stator with may be little rewiring of phase ( i.e. remove star / delta, and use all six wire to switching circuit. )
Can this work ? Is this concept possible to work ?
Best Answer
A standard 3-phase, AC motor has the stator windings distributed in the slots to form poles that do not have much saliency. A switched reluctance motor has both salient rotor poles and salient stator poles. You would need to rewind the stator to have a motor like that.
A synchronous reluctance motor has a salient-pole rotor, but distributed windings in the stator to form non-salient poles. To convert an induction motor to a synchronous reluctance motor, you could use the stator as it is and machine the rotor to look something like this:
You can get some induction-motor starting torque from the remaining rotor bars, but the best way to operate the motor would be with a variable-frequency drive (VFD). The VFD will provide reluctance torque from stand-still. That may or may not suit your purpose.
Of course, you may have some difficulty with rotor balance.