Assisted Permanent Magnet Novel Synchronous Reluctance Generator for a Residential Wind Turbine Drivetrain

Electric power generators in residential wind-turbine drivetrains do not only need to have high efficiency and good overload capabilities, but they also require high ratio power per mass, less volume and quick dynamic responses during severe loading. This paper presents an assisted permanent magnet novel synchronous reluctance generator (NSynRG) for residential wind turbine drivetrain, which has a sinusoidal rotor structure in the z-axis. The sinusoidal rotor structure is set to vary the airgap quadrature-axis flux density in the z-axis. Due to the unsymmetrical geometry of the rotor structure for the assisted permanent magnet NSynRG, the 3-Dimension Finite Element Method (FEM) is used for both magnetostatic and ac magnetic transient solutions. The results of the assisted permanent magnet NSynRG are compared with those obtained from an assisted permanent magnet conventional synchronous reluctance generator (CSynRG) having the same number of air barriers per pole, NdFeB magnet sizes, main design variables and ratings. The results from Finite Element Analysis (FEA) evidenced that the NSynRG has an upper hand in terms of performance when compared with the CSynRG.