Design of axial flux permanent magnet synchronous generators for a small scale hydro power stations.

What is it about?

In this paper an overview of waste water treatment process was demonstrated and a turbine was analytically designed for a potential hydro power station. After that, cored and coreless axial flux permanent magnet synchronous generators were analytically designed and simulated by a finite element analysis software, then the results were compared. A new hybrid half cored half coreless machine with lower stacking factor and without saturation was presented. The performance of the hybrid machine is enhanced by using a sensitivity analysis tool, built in Maxwell software, which achieved the required phase voltage by tuning the design input parameters. Lastly, a comparison relating to the performance and active materials weight was held between the different models and it shows that model (A) has the highest efficiency, model (B) is the most expensive due to high permanent magnet consumption while model (C) is the lightest and very promising regarding the easy manufacturing and high power to weight ratio.

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Photo by American Public Power Association on Unsplash

Photo by American Public Power Association on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Most electric power in the world are produced by low efficiency thermal power stations. Although, hydro power stations could be alternatives. they suffer from several obstacles. Firstly, large-scale hydro power stations require expensive civil constructions such as dams and reservoirs. secondly, climate change effects alter rivers and canals flow rates which disturb the hydro power stations production. As a result, a complete hydro-power station is proposed in this paper where a Savonius turbine will be analytically designed and theoretically installed in a water fall of a reservoir in a waste water treatment station. Linear design procedures, which can be used to design cored or coreless axial field permanent magnet synchronous generators are presented. The linear analysis is verified through modelling different generators using finite element analysis software then the results were compared. Finally, a new hybrid half cored half coreless axial flux permanent magnet synchronous generator is proposed and investigated.

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