ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 272276 (2004) e1727e1729

High-performance magnetic gears

Kais Atallah*, Stuart D. Calverley, David Howe
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, The University of Shefeld, Mappin Street, Shefeld S1 3JD, UK

Abstract Magnetic gearing may offer signicant advantages such as reduced maintenance and improved reliability, inherent overload protection, and physical isolation between input and output shafts. Despite these advantages, it has received relatively little attention, to date, probably due to the poor torque transmission capability of proposed magnetic gears. The paper describes a magnetic gear topology, which combines a signicantly higher torque transmission capability and a very high efciency. r 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PACS: 85.70.Ay; 85.70.Rp Keywords: Magnetic gearing; Rare-earth permanent magnet

1. Introduction It is usually more cost and weight effective to employ a high-speed electrical machine together with a mechanical gearbox to achieve the required load torque and speed. However, although, high system torque densities can then be achieved, gear lubrication and cooling are often required, whilst noise, vibration and reliability can be signicant issues. Magnetic gears are an alternative technology which may offer signicant advantages, such as, reduced maintenance and improved reliability, inherent overload protection, and physical isolation between input and output shafts. However, despite these advantages magnetic gearing has received relatively little attention to date, probably because of the relative complexity and poor torque density of the magnetic circuits which have been proposed [1,2]. Therefore, for applications in which mechanical gearing cannot be accommodated, direct electrical drives are employed. The paper describes a magnetic gear topology, Fig. 1, which combines a signicantly higher torque transmission capability, and a very high efciency.

Fig. 1. Schematic of 5.75:1 magnetic gear.

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-114-222-5812; fax: +44114-222-5196. E-mail address: k.atallah@shefeld.ac.uk (K. Atallah). 0304-8853/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jmmm.2003.12.520

Fig. 2. Radial ux density waveform.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
e1728 K. Atallah et al. / Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 272276 (2004) e1727e1729

2. Flux density waveforms Fundamental to the operation of the magnetic gear is the modulation of the magnetic elds produced by either the high- or low-speed rotor permanent magnets, by the steel pole pieces, which results in space harmonics having the same number of poles as the other rotor permanent magnets [3]. It can be shown that the number

of pole pairs in the space harmonic ux density distribution produced by either the high- or low-speed rotor permanent magnets, is given by pm;k jmp kns j; 1 where m 1; 3; 5; y; N; k 0; 71; 72; 73; y; 7N and p is the number of pole pairs on permanent magnet rotor, and ns the number of stationary steel pole pieces. Furthermore, the rotational velocity of the ux density space harmonics is given by Om;k mp=mp kns Or ; 2 where Or is the rotational velocity of the permanent magnet rotor. From Eq. (2), it can be seen that the velocity of the space harmonics due to the introduction of the steel pole pieces, viz. ka0; is different to the velocity of the rotor, which carries the permanent magnets. Therefore, in order to transmit torque at a different speed, the number of pole pairs of the other permanent magnet rotor must be equal to the number of pole pairs of a space harmonic for which ka0: Fig. 2 shows the variation of the radial component of ux density due to the high-speed rotor permanent magnets in the airgap adjacent to the low-speed rotor, and Fig. 3 shows its corresponding space harmonic spectrum, for the 5.75:1 magnetic gear, shown in Fig. 1. Clearly, the presence of the stationary steel pole-pieces results in a number of asynchronous space harmonics, one of which having the same number of poles as the number of poles of the permanent magnets of the other rotor.

Fig. 3. Space harmonic spectrum.

3. Torque transmission Fig. 4 shows the variation of the maximum torque on low-speed rotor with the radial thickness of the steel pole pieces, when the diameter of the airgap adjacent to the low-speed rotor and the magnet volumes of high- and

Fig. 4. Variation of maximum torque on low-speed rotor with the radial thickness of the steel pole pieces.

Fig. 5. Variation of the efciency of the magnetic gear with the transmitted torque (low speed), at different input shaft (high speed) speeds. (Active dimensions: O.D.=140 mm and axial length=50 mm.)

ARTICLE IN PRESS
K. Atallah et al. / Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 272276 (2004) e1727e1729 e1729

low-speed rotors are kept constant. It can be seen that an optimum radial thickness of stationary pole pieces exists. Fig. 5 shows the prototype 5.75:1 magnetic gear, and the measured variation of its efciency with transmitted torque (low-speed rotor). It can be seen that the efciency of the magnetic gear exceeds 97% for transmitted torque values greater then 75% of the measured pullout torque of about 60 Nm.

rare-earth magnets, a high torque density can be achieved, with efciences in excess of 97% for transmitted torque values higher than 75% of the pull-out torque.

References
[1] D.E. Hesmondhalgh, D. Tipping, A multielement magnetic gear, IEE Proc. 127 (Part B) (1980) 129. [2] K. Tsurumoto, S. Kikushi, A new magnetic gear using permanent magnet, IEEE Trans. Magn. 23 (1987) 3622. [3] K. Atallah, D. Howe, A novel high-performance magnetic gear, IEEE Trans. Magn. 37 (2001) 2844.

4. Conclusion A high-performance magnetic gear has been presented. It has been shown that, by employing