Development and Testing of Soft Magnetic Rotor for a Switched Reluctance Motor Built through Additive Manufacturing Technology

Additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, is an emerging technology that is gaining considerable research interest in recent years. In particular, metal printing methodologies might be successfully employed in developing lightweight and complex geometry components for electrical machines. In this paper, a soft magnetic material with a high content of silicon (i.e. ≈5%w.t.) has been characterized and its properties have been determined. The obtained material has been then used for 3D printing a salient, 8 pole rotor through selective laser melting. Finally, the manufactured rotor has been placed inside the laminated stator of a switched reluctance machine and its performance has been assessed through comprehensive experimental tests. The collected results confirmed the viability of additive manufacturing technology in the electrical machine field.