Comparison between rare-earth and ferrite permanent magnet flux-switching generators for gearless wind turbines

Abstract

Flux switching generators with permanent magnets (PMs) on the stator is a good alternative to traditional synchronous generators for gearless wind turbines. This paper is dedicated to the comparison of the 3-phase rare-earth and ferrite PM flux switching generators considered in gearless wind generator application (332 rpm, 1784 W). The machines are designed and optimized using the Nelder–Mead algorithm coupled with 2D FEM model. The objective function is built taking into account the following objectives: the average efficiency of the generators over the wind turbine profile, the required power of the AC–DC converter, the quantity of the magnets and the torque ripple. It is found that the ferrite PM flux switching generator can be an attractive alternative to the rare-earth one. The averaged efficiency of the generator with ferrite PM is higher by 4.1% than that of the rare-earth one. The active power of the ferrite generator is also higher in a wide range of powers. Although the mass of the ferrite PM generator is 2.4 times higher, the costs of the generators are approximately similar since the rare-earth magnets are much more expensive than ferrite ones.