Experimental evaluation of performance for micro wind turbines by using permanent magnets

Abstract

Permanent magnet synchronous generators with interior rotor (IR-PMSGs) have been widely preferred in micro wind turbines (MWTs). Customers demand high output power of the MWTs. Therefore, in this study, performance analyses and optimizations of two IR-PMSG rotors were practically carried out to increase the output power of the MWTs by employing N35 and N42 Neodymium-Iron-Boron (NdFeB) permanent magnets (PMs) with same geometry used on IR-PMSG rotor surfaces. For this purpose, two IR-PMSG rotors were designed with same geometry and applied to a pole shifting reduction technique to decrease their cogging torque on the IR-PMSGs as well. According to the obtained results, comparing the performances of the IR-PMSGs with both N35 and N42 NdFeB PMs on a MWT with regards to their power coefficients, an increase of 18.6% in power coefficient of the IR-PMSG with N42 NdFeB PMs was calculated.