Saturation control of electric machine
AssigneePratt & Whitney Canada Corp.
InventorsKevin Allan Dooley, Joshua David Bell
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The invention includes an electric alternator/motor having a rotor, stator and at least one winding in the stator adapted to conduct a current, the machine also having and first and second magnetic circuits, one of which includes a saturable portion in which saturation may be controlled to permit control of the machine.
Claims7
A method of regulating operation of an electrical machine, the method involving a plurality of electric machines, each machine having a magnetic rotor, a stator and at least one stator winding, the winding associated with a primary magnetic circuit defined by the rotor and stator, the winding also associated with a secondary magnetic circuit defined in the stator, the secondary magnetic circuit remote from the first magnetic circuit and including a magnetically saturable portion, the method comprising the steps of:
- operating each machine to provide at least one of generated output electrical power in the winding and motive power as a result of current supplied to the winding;
- controllably varying a saturation level of a portion of the secondary magnetic circuit to thereby control operation of each machine;
- monitoring the output of each machine for at least one criterion indicative of a fault condition existing in a deficient machine resulting in an associated power decrease;
- controllably varying a saturation level of at least one non-deficient machine to compensate for said power decrease.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.