Design Features of Low Speed Permanent Magnet Generator
Direct Driven by Wind Turbine
Wang Fengxiang, Bai Jianlong, Hou Qingming, Pan Jian
School of Electrical Engineering, Shenyang University of Technology, Shenyang 110023, China
Abstract In order to achieve a gearless construction for
the wind energy conversion system, a low speed multi-pole
generator is required, and consequently, the large number of
stator slots is needed to construct the multi-pole windings.
How to design the multi-pole stator winding using the less
number of slots in the limited size of the stator core is a big
issue for the low speed generator design. A new winding
structure with more poles and less slots is adopted to solve
the problem that the number of slots is normally larger than
the number of poles for the conventional machine design.
This paper introduces the design features of a direct driven
permanent magnet wind power generator (DPMIWG) with
the rated power in the region of 10-50 kW, which can be
either grid connected or stand alone to provide AC power to
the users.
Keywords low speed, permanent magnet generator,
design
I. INTRODUCTION
Wind energy can make significant and increasing
contribution to the electric utility networks since the
wind power is "green" and cheap source. However, there
are two problems needed to be solved for wind power
generation: the unstable wind speed and the low rotating
speed of the wind turbine due to the large diameter of
the blades. In order to solve the problem of changeable
wind speed, some technologies to realize variable speed
constant frequency have been developed. To solve the
second problem, the conventional way is using a
gearbox to increase the rotor speed and reduce the
generator size. Unfortunately, the gearbox generates
vibration and noise, increases losses and needs
lubrication as well as regular maintenance [ 1-2].
In recent years, the idea of a gearless wind energy
system has gained momentum and a number of
alternative concepts have been proposed for direct
driven electrical generators, especially the permanent
magnet generator. The reliability and efficiency of the
wind power generation system will be increased by
using a direct driven permanent magnet generator [3-6].
The followinlg problems need to be conlsidered for the
designl of a direct drivenl wind, generator.
A. Choice ofMachine Type and Structure
As contrasted with the long and thin structure of high
speed machine, the low speed machine usually has a short
and fat structure like a disc in order to use effectively the
rotating speed of the rotor. The permanent magnet (PM)
machine is a favorite with the direct driven wind
generator due to its high efficiency and simple structure
1017
although the conventional synchronous and induction
machines can be used.
There are mainly two structures of DPMWG: the axial
flux machine as shown in Fig. 1, and the radial flux
machine as shown in Fig.2 [2]. The inner rotor or outer
rotor structure can be adopted for these two kinds of PM
generator.
stator core pe rtlallent macnet
If aa
rotor core K. coib
Fig. 1: A structure of axial flux PM machine
cols
pernaaent nagLet
rotor core
Fig.2: A structure of the radial flux PM machine
B. Choice of Pole Number and Slot Number
How to design the multi-pole stator winding using the
fewer number of slots in the limited size of the stator core
is a big issue for the low speed generator design. In order
to get the needed frequency of the output power, a large
number of poles should be chosen for a low speed
generator, and consequently, the large number of stator
slots is needed to construct the multi-pole windings.
For a conventional synchronous generator design, the
number of stator slots is more than the number of poles to
get the better waveform of voltage and performance. For a
32-pole generator, a typical choice of the slot number is
72. The machine structure is as shown in Fig. 3.
In this paper, a new structure for direct driven low
speed PM generator with more poles and fewer slots will
be introduced. Based on the magnetic field analysis by
means of finite element method, the comparison of
machine performance for different design parameters will
be presented.
 B. Design of Stator Winding
Fig.5 is the distribution diagram of slot EMF vectors.
In order to construct symmetrical three-phase stator
winding, one choice is putting the slot vectors 1, -2, 3, 10,
A P -11, 12, 19,-20, 21, 28,-29, 30 in phase A; 7,-8, 9, 16,
-17, 18, 25, -26, 27, 34, -35, 36 in phase B; and 4, -5, 6,
/ x5 13, -14, 15, 22, -23, 24, 31, -32, 33 in phase C, as shown
in Fig.5. If the coil pitch is taken as 2 (from slot 1 to slot
3), the three-phase double-layer stator windings can be
I constructed as shown in Fig.4. It can be seen from Fig.5
that all the slot vectors of each phase are located within a
regain of 600; therefore, a high winding factor can be
Fig.3. Structure of a conventionally designed PM obtained although the number of slots is only 36 and less
machine with 32-pole and 72-slots
than the number of poles.
II. DESIGN OF A Low SPEED PM GENERATOR
A. Machine Type and Structure
A practical direct driven low speed wind generator
needs to be designed. The specifications of the wind
generator are as follows:
Rated power 20 kW
Rated speed 110 r/min
Rated phase voltage 300 V
Rated frequency > 35 Hz
It is well known that the relationship between rotor Fig.5. Diagram of slot EMF vectors of a PM
speed n, number of pole pair p and frequency f for a machine with 40 poles and 36 slots
synchronous generator can be expressed as
f pn 60
(1) III. PERFORMANCE SIMULATION BASED ON FEM
In order to obtain the better design, several design
Based on the frequency requirement, the number of pole schemes with different structure parameters have investi-
pairs is chosen as 20, the corresponding frequency at the gated and compared based on the finite element analysis
rated speed is 36.6. (FEA). The parameters for different design schemes are
The surface mounted NdFeB permanent magnet inner as shown in Table I.
rotor structure is adopted. The reason for this choice is not
only the high power density and efficiency of the PM TABLE I
machine but also the consideration that the surface MAIN PARAMETERS FOR DIFFERENT DESIGN SCHEMES
mounted PM rotor is particularly suitable for the multi-
pole rotor structure. Number of 1 2 3 4
design scheme
The limited width of the stator tooth can not allow
choosing a large number of slots. The fewer slots can Pole number 32 32 40 40
make the utilization of the stator core more effective and Slot number 36 72 36 72
the stator winding easier to be built. 36 stator slots are Flux density of 1.6-1.7 1.6-1.7 Aboutl.4 1.6-1.7
taken in the design. Compared with the conventional de- tooth (T)
sign shown in Fig.3, the number of poles increase from 32 Coefficient of 0.57- 0.57- 0.57- 0.57-
to 40, and the number of slots reduced from 72 to 36. The pole are 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.96
proposed structure of rotor and stator is as shown in Fig. 4.
A. Effect of PM Thickness
The choice of thickness for PM with radial magnetiza-
tion is related to the requirement of protecting the PM
from demagnetization, and generating the needed mag-
netic field of the air gap. It has been found that the
relationship of the no load voltage versus the variation of
PM thickness for different design schemes with the same
air gap PM width are similar as shown in Fig.6. It can be
observed from Fig.6 that if the PM thickness is larger than
10 mm, the contribution of the PM to the voltage can not
Fig. 4. Structure of stator and rotor for a low speed
PM generator with 40 poles and 36 slots increase. Therefore, the PM thickness of 11-12 mm is

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enough from the point of view of demagnetization protec-
tion as well as the air gap flux requirement.

ap~~~~~1)
- a
p = o.,i q9
00 _
N<9/ - 0.72
=

0 100 200 --ap

300~~~a1 = 096
2
Rotor Positioln Angle (Dgree)
Fig.7: No load voltage for 32 poles and 36 slots
PM Thickness (mm)
Fig.6: relationship of magnet thickness and no load voltage
B. No loadAnalysis and Discussion
In order compare the effect of parameters, the no load
phase voltages of the PM generator for different design
schemes as shown in Table I are calculated as shown in
Fig. 7 through 10. From the comparison of the above four
figures, the following points can be deduced:
* For the same numbers of poles and slots, increasing
A X / g~~~~~~~a)
I ap 0.59
A'
=

the pole arc coefficient o (the ratio of magnet I _ ~~~ap as60.96 =

width to the pole pitch) will increase slightly the no F otor Position A3pgle(Degree)
load voltage and make the top of voltage waveform
more flat. Fig.8: No load voltage for 32 poles and 72 slots
* For the same number of pole and rotor structure,
increasing the number of slots (from 36slots to 72
slots) will increase the no load voltage by making
the top of voltage waveform more flat, which can be
observed from the comparison of Fig. 7 with Fig. 8,
and Fig. 9 with Fig. 10.
* For the same number of slots and winding structure,
increasing the number of poles will increase the no
load voltage by making the top of voltage waveform
more flat, which can be seen from the comparison
of Fig. 7 with Fig. 9, and Fig. 8 with Fig. 10.
* Due to the unstable frequency and amplitude, the Fig.9: No load voltage for 40 poles and 36 slots
output power of the direct driven PM wind
generator usually needs to be converted into
constant frequency and constant voltage through
AC/DC/AC converters. In this case the output
voltage with flat top of the generator is benefit to
the ripple reduction of the rectified DC link voltage.
From Fig.9 it can be seen that the design scheme
with 40 poles, 36 slots and o= 0.72 can offer the
desirable voltage waveform.
C. Load Analysis and Discussion
The no load voltage can be calculated by solving the
static magnetic field. However, the load voltage should be
calculated by solving the transient electromagnetic field Fig. 10: No load voltage for 40 poles and 72 slots
coupled with the out load circuit since the load current
and terminal voltage of the generator depend upon not The load current and voltage are calculated in the
only the PM machine but also the load condition. following way:

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Step 1: for a specified rotor position, the assumed currents
are first applied to the phase windings, and then
the flux linkages as well as the corresponding
EMFs are calculated by solving the transient
electromagnetic field. And then the load currents
are calculated by substituting the obtained EMF
by FEA into the load circuit of the generator to
get the load currents.
Step 2: The calculated load currents are compared with
the assumed initial currents. If the errors between
the initial and calculated currents are small
enough, then computation for the next rotor
position will start; and if the errors exceed the
permitted value, the next step for iteration is
needed.
Step 3: The phase currents need to be assumed again
based the above current errors, and the iteration
computing procedure from step 1 will continue
until getting the right load current.
The calculated load voltages, currents electromagnetic
torque under the rated rotor speed for different design
schemes are shown in Fig. 11, 12 and 13 respectively.
450
300
Only three design schemes are chosen for the load
characteristic analysis and the design scheme with 32
poles and 36 slots is omitted due to its bad no load EMF
waveform.
From the comparison of the simulated load characteris-
tics it can be seen that the load voltage, current and
electromagnetic torque are very close for different poles
and slots. The design scheme with 40 poles and 72 slots
has a little bit higher voltage and torque than the others.
However, the design scheme with 40 poles and 36 slots
has the advantages of lower tooth flux density, as shown
in Table I, higher efficiency of core utilization, and easier
to be manufactured due to the fewer slots.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
From the analysis and comparison for different design
schemes of a 20 kW direct driven low speed PM wind
generator, the following points can be deduced:
* There is currently a great deal of interest in directly
driven generator without gears which can eliminate
noise and maintain cost of the gearbox, increase the
system efficiency and reliability by using the brush-
less PM generator.

150 * How to design the multi-pole stator winding using less

number of slots in the limited size of the stator core is
a big issue for the low speed generator design.
-o -150

-300 * This paper presents a new design scheme of the direct

-450
driven PM wind generator with large number of poles
50 100 150 200 250 300 350 and small number of slots. The comparative study
Rotor Posintion Anqle (Deqree)
based on FEA for different numbers of poles and slots
c Fig. 11. Load voltages for different num- shows that the proposed design scheme offers the
bers of poles and slots good performance both of no load and rated load. The
0

design with fewer slots can reduce the flux density of

stator teeth, and provide more room for housing the
a0 stator winding to increase the output power.

REFERENCES
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0 100 200 300
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400 [2] T. Rovio, etc., "Axial and radial flux generators in small-scale wind
power production," Institute of Electromagnetics, Tampere
Fig. 12. Load currents for different num- University of Technology, 2001.
bers of poles and slots
[3] J. Chen and C.V. Nayar, L. Xu, "Design and finite-element analysis
r
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z~ 150( [4] Petri Lampola, "Directly driven, low-speed permanent-magnet
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10 100( mechanics, Helsinki University of Technology, May 2000.
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40-pole 36-slot
multi-pole permanent magnet generator for wind turbines. DEWI
Il
- 40-pole 72-slot Magazine, no.9, August 1996.
100 150 200 250 300 350 400
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numbers of poles and slots

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