SummaryIn this paper, a squirrel cage induction machine (SCIM) with broken rotor bars is modeled by using the multiple coupled circuit theory and the winding function approach. This analytical model includes all the spatial harmonic components of air gap magnetomotive force and is applicable to the study of transient machine behaviors. Equivalent circuits that are consistent with the topologies of healthy and faulty cage rotors are developed. The equivalent circuit for the healthy rotor of a SCIM having an integer number of rotor bars per pole is simplified further by exploiting the symmetry of the winding functions of the stator. In the equivalent circuit for a healthy rotor, inserting an independent current source in the bar that breaks in the damaged rotor, whose current is the negative of the current through the same bar, and replacing all the voltage sources in the rest of the bars with short circuits result in an equivalent circuit that can be employed to solve for the deviations in rotor mesh currents caused by bar breakage. A simulation is carried out in MATLAB/Simulink for a 2.2 kW, three‐phase, four‐pole SCIM with 28 rotor bars and a laboratory test rig is built. The effectiveness of the proposed model was validated by the good agreement of the simulation results with the experimental data.