Open Switch Fault Effects Analysis in Five-Phase PMSM Designed for Aerospace Application

This paper describes analytical and simulation tools to analyze the effects of Open Switch Fault (OSF) and Open Phase Fault (OPF) on five-phase PMSM designed for aerospace applications. For such applications, the fault tolerance and the reliability of the drive (PMSM and the power converter) are important to take into account for design. The addressed work aims essentially to analyze the dynamic of the measured phase currents in post-fault operation with a real-time fault diagnostic purpose in the VSI. The paper starts with a presentation of the electric drive system structure and its control used in pre-fault and post-fault operation. Then, fault effects analysis (FEA) on the system will be considered. All results are verified analytically and through simulation software using Matlab/Simulink (R). The theoretical development and the simulation results show that the five-phase PMSM under inverter faults presents typical characteristics which can be used as better input variables for designing a high performance real-time fault diagnostic and classification process.