Design Study of FSPM Generator with Novel Outer
Rotor Configuration for Small Wind Turbine
Application
Alireza Zohoori, Abolfazl Vahedi
Department of Electrical Engineering
Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST)
Tehran, Iran
AbstractFlux Switching Permanent Magnet Machine (FSPM) is
a new type of machine that due to their fault tolerant capability,
high torque and power density and simple structure become a
proper candidate for wind turbine power application which
could easily satisfy the grid code requirements. In this paper a
novel outer rotor configuration design of FSPM is proposed. The
design procedure is carried out based on two main factors
including reducing the stator pole number and increasing the
rotor pole number to improve the electrical loading and the
output torque capability of the machine respectively. Due to the
low electrical frequency of the direct drive FSPM machine,
increasing the rotor pole number would not cause any drawback
such as significant hysteresis loss of the machine and switching
loss of the machine side converter. The results have shown an
appropriate behavior of the machine for wind turbine
application from electromagnetic point of view.
Keywords-component; Flux Switching Permanent Magnet
(FSPM) generator, magnetic flux density, Incuded Voltage (EMF),
Electromagnetic Torque, Wind turbine FSPM generator
I. INTRODUCTION
Due to permanently increasing of employing wind turbine
power generation from industrial to small rural application with
respect to environmental pollution, nowadays researchers are
investigating to find the generator that could appropriately
satisfy the grid code requirement. Two popular generators for
wind turbine application are doubly fed induction generator
(DFIG) and permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG)
that their main problem is their higher weight, cost and cutting
off in the fault condition and inability to work under fault
condition if there is no additional control system exists
respectively [1]. Recently FSPM machine is introduced.
Basically this machine is emerged from combination of
brushless permanent magnet and switched reluctance machines
[2-3]. The FSPM machine has the advantageous of those
mentioned one simultaneously. Researchers claim that FSPM
has higher torque and power density, lower weight than the PM
machines. Also FSPM could continue their performance during
fault condition that is known as fault tolerant which is a
significant inherited characteristic origin from switched
reluctance machine. Indeed, the benefits of FSPM generator
978-1-4799-4660-0/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE
Mohammad Ali Noroozi
Department of Electrical Engineering
Amirkabir University of Technology
Tehran, Iran
such as smaller size and weight and fault tolerant capability as
well as more reliability and efficient performance respect to
conventional synchronous machines lead to much attenuation
[4]. As it is mentioned the power and torque density of the
FSPM is higher than conventional PM generators employed in
wind turbine application hence the implementation cost of the
machine decreased due to lower requirement to permanent
magnet which cost is increased in past years.
FSPM creates a new category of the machine. To the best
knowledge of the author till know there are a few and
incomplete studies carried out for FSPMG with the objective of
wind turbine application [5].
There are some studies carried out for FSPM machine for
hybrid electric machine and downhole applications in motor
mode of operation. Also most of the studies investigated with
the inner rotor configuration of the FSPM [6-8].
This paper presents a thorough theoretical analysis of the
FSPM generator for wind turbine application. A novel structure
of the FSPM with outer rotor configuration is proposed. The
designed machine has6 and 19 stator and rotor pole number,
respectively. Assigning 6 pole for stator provide enough space
for armature winding that consequently increased the electrical
loading of the machine also 19 pole for the rotor results in
increasing the output torque of the FSPM. Firstly, a theoretical
dimension designing of the FSPM is discussed. Then the
FSPM is modeled with finite element method (FEM) Maxwell
14. Then an optimization is carried out with respect to THD
reduction and EMF enhancement. Since the FSPM is like PM
machine, this improvement in machine design causes lower
cost for the stator side converter that finally results in lower
total cost for implementation.
II. PERMANENT MAGNET FLUX SWITCHIING MACHINE
STRUCTURE
The PMFSM is emerged from combination of switch
reluctance machine (SRM) and brushless PM.
The machine employed a steel rotor structure which is alike to
the SRM hence there is no winding or PM available on it.
Armature winding is placed on stator and employed
concentrated configuration. This is another similarity to SRM.
Each coil is wounded around a pole located between two
segments that results to lower copper loss.
The stator structure is differed from SRM where it utilized
modular segments that directly depend to the number of stator
pole. The PM located between this U shape segments in the
stator that consequently pops out some of the brushless PM
machine characteristic in FSPM machine. The PMs located in
such a manner that their magnetization direction is reversed
successively [8].
Like SRM the stator and rotor pole number can differ from
each other. The structure presented in this paper is a typical
three phase with 6 stator poles and 19 rotor poles that is
depicted in Fig. 1. Also, a closer view of the designed FSPMG
is shown in Fig. 2 which illustrated that the two adjacent PM
magnetized in the opposite direction.
Fig.1 A 3-phase 6/19 FSPMG prototype
FSPM machine consist several significant advantageous and
desirable properties that make it beneficial for wind turbine
application. The following listed explanation could give an
appropriate concept to completely clarify the reason of
employing FSPM.
1- Better cooling of the machine due to placement of the
PM and armature winding in the stator that is the fixed
active part. This is an important issue since the
generator is located in an enclosure frame called
nacelle where the cooling method of generator become
more important [4, 6].
2- Possessing higher power and torque density than the
available machine is the other desirable property for
wind power application that finally leads to the lower
weight in comparison with commercial and industrial
existence machine [4, 7].
3- Fault tolerant capability of the machine which inherits
from the SRM [4] that cause the machine to operate
during a fault occurrence without any disconnection
from the gird with the goal to satisfy the grid code
requirement. This is an amazing characteristic that
become more significant every day due to constant
increasing of wind turbine power generation in the
world.
Fig. 2 2D model of the proposed FSPMG with two adjacent PM with
opposite direction are shown in closer view
III. THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
This section presents the analytical equation of the FSPM
machine for sizing calculation with respect to the stator and
rotor pole number.
As it was mentioned earlier increasing rotor pole number
could increase the output power of the machine and electrical
frequency simultaneously. The electrical frequency of the
FSPM can be obtained by:
n .2.N R
f = (1)
120
Where n and NR is the rotor speed and rotor pole number
respectively. Since the FSPM is categorized as a direct drive
turbine the rotor speed hence the frequency is low. This
feature gives one degree of freedom to the designer to increase
the rotor pole number in order to increase the output power
without any significant increment of core loss. For this study
number of rotor pole is equal to 19.
In order to increase the electrical loading of the generator
the stator pole is chosen equal to 6. This provides more space
for armature winding and appropriate usage of available space
of the machine that consequently leads to more output
electrical torque.
The following explanation makes it crystal clear that
assigning outer rotor configuration for the FSPMG could
provide following benefits:
1- Bigger rotor diameter provides the possibility to
increase the rotor pole number and consequently higher
output electromagnetic torque.
2- Reducing the stator pole number leads to more
available space for the winding that could increase the
electrical loading of the machine.
In order to calculate the machine physical specification the
output power equation could be considered as follow [9-10]:
Pout = m .U f .I f . .cos( ) (2)
Where Pout , U f , and I f are the rated output power,
the rated phase voltage, the efficiency and phase current,
respectively while cos( ) is the load power factor.
 KE is the ratio of no-load voltage to output rated voltage N S .E
that its varying from 1 to 1.15 in the generator operation T ph = a. (9)
mode. One important factor that directly effect on this ratio is 2. .K L .N R .D g2 .n .Bg max
2

the load power factor. Where a is the number of coils in each phase, that is considered
The induced voltage (EMF) for the machine with sinusoidal 4 for this paper.
voltage function can be expressed as [10]: From final element method simulation the optimal values for
e = N t ..max .cos t (3) PM width and stator slot width with respect to output electrical
torque and cogging torque are:
=2 nN R (4) S
w PM = (10)
Where Nt is number of each coil turns and max is the 5
maximum air gap flux density in the d axis position of the S
generator. is the angular speed of the FSPMG and n in (4) is w ss = (11)
4
counted as revolution per second (rps). The stator teeth could be calculated as follow:
.D g S w ss w PM
max = B g max .A coil = B g max .l st . (5) w ts = (12)
NS 2
l st , D g , A coil and B g max are stack length, the machine air The total stator width is the summation PM width and stator
teeth:
gap diameter, the coil area and the air gap flux density peak
W S = 2.w ts + w PM (13)
value respectively.
By employing the following equations in (3) , induced The area of the stator slot is calculated as:
voltage can be expressed as follow: Ac
A slot = 2. (14)
N D k fill
E = N t .2. .n . R .l st . g .Bg max (6)
2 NS Where Ac is the peripheral cross section and Kfill is the fill
In order to obtain the physical characteristic of the factor. Due to practical experience the proper fill factor for the
machine the designers tie the active stack length and air gap machine is considered about 0.5.
diameters that is called aspect coefficient. The value of this Then the stator slot height of the FSMP could be obtained:
ratio is chosen based on practical experience, the output power A slot
hsl = (15)
of the machine, importance of power factor or with the aim of w ss
high efficiency.
To prevent the stator back iron from saturation, the stator yoke
l is taken almost equal to the stator tooth width [16].
K L = st (7)
Dg
The average air gap diameter of the machine that can be 6
h ys = .w ts (16)
deduced from output power equation is [9-10]: 5
Pout .N s Hence the PM height can be calculated by the summation of
Dg = 3 (8) stator yoke and stator slot height:
2. N R .K L .K E cos .n .B g max .AS
3
hPM = hsl + h ys (17)
As it can be seen from the above equation the average air
Consequently the FSPM generator outer diameter could be
gap diameter directly depends on the active output power and
computed as follow:
number of stator pole and inversely related to number of rotor
pole, load power factor, electrical loading, rotor speed (rps) and Dout = D g + g + 2.hPM (18)
electrical loading.
The electrical loading of the machine is expressed as: IV. CASE STUDY
NtIf In this section the discussed FEM modeling is applied to a
AS = (8) 1.5 KW class FSPM generator. The main physical specification
.D g
of the FSPM along with electrical characteristic of the
For appropriate performance of the machine and lower proposed generator presented in this paper is shown in Table I.
thermal loss of the winding the electrical loading of the In order to perform the simulation for the presented FSPM
machine is considered in such a way that the current density of generator Maxwell 2-D software version 14 is used. The 2-D
the copper wire placed between 3-6 A/mm2. model of the FSPM generator, based on the specifications in
The number of coils per phase can be calculated by the Table I, is illustrated in Fig. 2. It should be noted that since the
following equation:
flux path in the FSPM is not specified clearly, to achieve more
3
accurate design and simulation the node numbers of the air gap
region and opening of stator tooth are considered relatively 2.5
small in this case this length set to 1mm. Total number of mesh
element 38369 is considered in the FEM model. 2

Flux density (T)

TABLE 1. DESIGN PARAMETERS OF THE PROPOSED FSPMG 1.5
PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS AND DESIGN PARAMETERS
Stator pole number, Ns 6 1
Rotor pole number, Nr 19
Air gap diameter, Dg [mm] 40 0.5
Rotor outer diameter, Dout [mm] 60
Air gap length, g [mm] 0.3 0
PM width, wPM [mm] 2 0 50 100 150
PM height, hPM [mm] 20 Distance (mm)
Stator slot height, hsl [mm] 1231 Fig. 4 Air gap flux density of the 6/19 FSPMG
Height of stator yoke, hys [mm] 5
Stator teeth width, wts 4 The flux density in air gap of the FSPMG is shown in Fig. 4.
Stack length, lst [mm] 70 It is shown that due to the sharp teeth of the stator the flux
Number of turns per phase, Tph 60
density is high although one of the characteristic of the FSPM
Rated output power, Pout (KW) 1.5
Rotor rated speed, n (rpm) 200 is their high flux density [12-13]. The only issue is hidden in its
relatively high air gap flux density that one should consider it
in the design process in such a way that the core loss of the
machine does not effect on the performance. This issue will
require more study in order to reduce the core loss and
60 avoiding from the saturation of FSPMG.
40 2
Induced Voltage (V)

20 1.5

0 1
Cogging Torque (N.m)

-20 0.5

-40 0

-0.5
-60
-1
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Time (ms) -1.5
Fig. 3 Induced Voltage of the 6/19 FSPMG
-2
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
To understand the cogging torque and EMF of the proposed Time (ms)
FSPM generator, the simulation is carried out while the rotor Fig. 5 cogging torque of the 6/19 FSPMG
speed is 200 rpm in no load condition. Fig. 3 illustrates the
induced voltage of the proposed FSPMG. The maximum
produced voltage is calculated 75 volt. Also the total harmonic The proposed FSPMG has a highly desirable cogging
distortion (THD) of the output voltage is approximately torque due to the chosen combination of the machine that
calculated about 3%. The low harmonic contents of the makes it very suitable for the wind turbine application. As it
produced voltage show the proper electromagnetic design of can be seen from Fig.5 maximum value of the cogging torque
the proposed generator. is equal to 1.75 N.m.
For proper understanding the behavior of the FSPMG under
operating mode the simulation time has been increased to
appropriately cover the transient time of operation. Hence the
time of simulation is considered in such a way that it depict
two period of each electromagnetic parameter.

10
Electromagnetic Torque (Nm)
0
-10
-20
-30
-40
0 5
Fig. 6 Output torque of the 6/19 FSPMG
The electromagnetic torque is depicted in Fig. 6, by
comparison with Fig. 6, the ratio of cogging torque to output
electromagnetic torque is about four percent that is a proper
criterion to proof the suitable design of the machine. Note that
in most of conventional PM machine design this ratio is very
significant (much bigger that the ratio which is obtained here)
and researchers try to improve it as best as they could.
0 IEEE 14th Conference on Electromagnetic Field Computation (CEFC),
-200
OutPut Power (Watt)
-400
-600
-800
-1000
-1200
-1400
0 5
Fig. 7 Output power of the 6/19 FSPMG
The output power of the generator is depicted in Fig. 7 it
should be noted that since the machine is in generator mode of
operation the value of the power is negative same as the output
torque.
In this paper a thorough study of theoretical analysis and
Fem modeling of the FSPM generator is presented for the small
wind turbine application. The novel outer rotor configuration
of the FSPM with 6 stator and 19 rotor pole is presented. The
main aims of the design are based on increasing the output
torque by increasing the rotor pole number and increasing the
electrical loading of the machine by decreasing the stator pole
number. Although it was concluded that that the cogging
torque will be increased if the difference between the stator and
rotor increase, but due to appropriate design of the machine this
issue does not effect on the performance of the FSPM as it is
discussed in previous section.
The FSPMG would have a bright future for wind turbine
application. Although due to direct connection of the turbine
shaft to the generator which has a low speed, consequently
results in low electrical frequency of the FSPMG.
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