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A Magnetic Suspended Self-pitch

Vertical Axis Wind Generator
Shuqin Liu, Zhongguo Bian, Deguang Li, Wen Zhao
Magnetic Suspension Technology Laboratory,
School of Electrical Engineering, Shandong University
Jinan, China
lshuqin@sdu.edu.cn, bzhongguo@sdu.edu.cn
Abstract--In this paper, basic principle and main features of a
magnetic suspended self-pitch vertical axis wind turbine are
presented. Compared with the horizontal axis wind turbine and
the traditional vertical axis wind turbine, this new magnetic
suspended self-pitch vertical axis wind turbine has the following
main advantages: All permanent magnetic bearings, without
friction, low start speed, low noise, high efficiency and energy
saving; without lubrication, lower maintenance costs; no wear
and long life; In the rotation of the wind turbine roter, the pitch
can be adjusted arbitrarily by the blades to maintain the best
angle and the maximum thrust all the time; Enlarging the
capacity of single wind generator is a way to reduce the total cost.
The vertical axis wind turbine in this paper can raise single unit
power easily by lengthening the arm or blades; it can start up by
itself. This new magnetic suspended vertical axis wind generator
has irreplaceable advantages compared with any other kinds of
wind generators. This new kind of magnetic suspended vertical
axis wind generator with the advantage of lower noise will have
broad application prospects.
Key words: wind generator; magnetic suspended; self-pitch;
vertical axis

I.

INTRODUCTION

Wind energy is a safe, clean, renewable energy, with the

problem of energy growing today, wind power, as the most
important form of wind energy utilization by the high priority
around the world is undergoing rapid development period.
Global wind power capacity had been increased by 29% in
2008 and the United States surpass Germany as the world's
first wind power state. At present, wind power generation has
accounted for 1.5% in the proportion of global energy
consumption, while in 1997, merely 0.1%. In Asia, the
installed capacity of wind power ranking were increased
rapidly in China, about 6.3 million kilowatts, with a total
capacity of wind power up to 1,220 kilowatts, it made China
became secondary in the world, As the wind power
technology is relatively mature, it has been inputted into
larger and has developed rapidly in many countries. In
addition, the external cost of wind power is almost zero, or
even less than the cost of nuclear power. According to
preliminary estimates, wind power is currently the most
economical and clean source of energy in the world, if the
internal costs and external costs are both considered. [1, 2]
Wind energy is also one of public non-nuisance, and it is
inexhaustible, for the areas lacking of water and fuel and
inaccessible coastal islands, pastoral grasslands, mountains
and highland areas, according to local specific conditions, the
use of off-grid small-scale wind turbines is ideal. In this paper,

magnetic levitation wind turbine off-grid analysis and testing

carried out was the principle, and described in more detail the
advantages.
II.

SELF-PITCH VERTICAL AXIS WIND

GENERATOR

According to the direction of axis of rotation points, wind

turbine can be divided into two kinds: horizontal axis and
vertical axis. Horizontal axis wind turbine, which is a mature
development of the aircraft propeller theory, is being widely
used currently. But the design and manufacturing of the
horizontal axis wind turbine are very complex. And the
unsatisfactory of the department are: 1. Wind wheels occupy
space and cover an area of major; 2. Higher requirement on
the wind towers; 3. Wind round the wind does not uniform; 4.
High speed of wind turbine, high requirement on the materials;
5. noisy. In particular the leaves of floating installation have to
withstand the tremendous positive pressure of the wind and
therefore cost highly. The larger Stand-alone power is, the
higher their cost is. Thats why the wind power is far more
expensive than ordinary electricity. Compared with the
horizontal axis, the vertical axis wind turbines have more
advantages: 1. Do not need wind institutions, adapt to wind in
all directions without changing the direction of rotation; 2.Be
able to transport the power directly to the ground without
changing the drive, the working machine can be placed on the
ground, low center of gravity. 3. Lower speed of wind turbine,
and lower demands on the material. 4.Less noise. These
advantages have ever been more clearly understood by people.
However, the traditional vertical axis wind turbines also have
weaknesses: the need for a blade to adjust body, which not
only makes the body machine complex, but also increases
costs. And this kind of wind turbine is difficult to self-starting,
the additional start-sector has increased the manufacturing
costs, resulting in greatly reduced wind energy utilization
coefficient, thus the traditional advantages of vertical axis
wind turbines also vanish.
In order to improve the overall performance of wind turbines
to achieve greater efficiency, energy saving, environmental
protection and easy universe, it must be aimed at the
innovations of the traditional vertical axis wind turbine
systems, particularly in that of wind turbine blade structure
and functioning of wind turbine drive part, both of which will
directly affect the start speed of wind turbines, wind energy
utilization and consumption of the driving force.
In this paper, a rectangle shaped rotor blade applied to the
wind turbine is presented. The vertical axis wind turbine

978-1-4244-4813-5/10/$25.00 2010 IEEE

generator has a high wind energy utilization coefficient and

the leaves do not have to bear all the positive pressure of the
wind directly. Vertical axis wind turbine, due to the lower
rotation speed and thus lower prerequisite of the material of
leaves, can be manufactured simply and low-cost. Only with
that superiority horizontal axis wind turbines can be strong
competitive. On the other hand, the appearance size of the
horizontal axis of the leaves is distorted and the thickness and
width of them are
changeable in order to adapt to the best
angle of attack needs. The machine is a rectangular blade
form, making processing easier.
In order to use the energy of wind effectively, the blade of
traditional vertical axis wind turbine is made into variable
pitch one, But its defects is excessive consumption of energy
and difficult to start fan itself when adjusting blade Angle of
attack push-rod structure. In recent years, someone finds the
hinge leaves could swing in the rotation, so the restrict nails
appeared to limit the swing in a reasonable angle of attack.
However, there is restrict nail accompanied by striking, with
the long time, cycle and strong impacting, leaves are easily to
be damaged. This new vertical axis wind turbine blades can
adjust the distance between the paddles automatically in the
wheel rotating, the installation angle randomly to keep the
best wind angle, and the simple structure, high efficiency and
low cost of self-adjusting paddles distance vertical axis wind
turbine rotor. Leaves always keep the best wind angle to
create maximum thrust and improve power generation
efficiency. When the wind is relatively stable, the wind wheel
rotate one revolution, leaves are made periodic changes. in the
wind when the leaves are in two points about to or against the
wind, the wind angle is zero, apart from those the wind angle
is generated in any other location, which a thrust has
generated. When the wind blows to the rest of the wind
turbine, the side of the leaves with the same direction to the
wind and other side of the leaves with the vertical direction to
the wind, thus this situation makes the wind turbine form a
differential resistance to wind turbine, and start up
immediately under the wind power. At the start of the
transient, wind-turbine rotor blade automatically adjust the
best angle of attack then enter the normal operation of the
lift-type machine.
In recent years, parallel connecting rod type vertical axis
wind turbines are more common in some countries, the
majority of products are designed with parallel connecting rod
in the wind wheel, in this way a higher output shaft of the
generator is required, and the structure is relatively complex,
on-site installation program is also the high side. In addition,
from the mechanics analysis, the general H-type vertical axis
wind turbine power is larger and leaves is longer, also the
distance is larger between the center of the rod parallel and
the center of the generator shaft ,but the ability of resist wind
becomes worse. Our design structure of leaf let the pressure of
the wind along direction from the wheel arm to tower, but not
generate the torque in the leaves, thus it greatly reduces the
cost of blades.
It is worth pointing out that this wind turbines blades can
be made of serialized standby fittings which the sizes are
different, then according to the differences of the wind
resources, the hosts with the same type can use the of blades

of different sizes, and this is the uniqueness that any other

wind turbines do not have.
III. THE APPLICATION OF MAGNETIC BEARING
The traditional vertical axis wind turbine has to overcome
the weight and friction of the transmission mechanism, while
it also needs to overcome the resistance which is caused by
the weight of generator rotor and the friction of mechanical
bearing, this increases the driving force of transmission drive
system, and reduces the efficiency of the generator.
It is more than ten years for us to develop magnetic
bearing and the research for the magnetic bearing technology
application in wind turbine is our project of 2002. On the one
hand, using magnetic bearing device in wind turbine greatly
reduces the friction of the vertical axis wind turbines power
transmission; on the other hand it overcomes the consumption
of the driving force which is caused by the weight of wind
turbine and generator rotor. Because of the full magnetic
levitation, the friction is very small so that the starting is
much easier, then the superiority of vertical axis wind turbine
has been fully and completely displayed. It mainly has the
following advantages: impeller installed in the shaft, this shaft
and generator shaft are made to one ,then the whole shaft was
suspended in position by full-permanent magnet bearing, even
the wind wheel spins up, the friction coefficient is almost zero,
compared with the similar conventional wind turbine the drive
efficiency has risen markedly. Tests showed that the
application of magnetic suspension device makes the starting
torque reduced by one third and the starting wind speed is
reduced from3-4 m/s to 1.5-2.5 m/s. At the same time the
wind wheel can not only deliver greater torque to the
generator, but also eliminate mechanical vibration. It works
without noise or lubrication in a long-term reliable state,
eliminates routine maintenance, and also because the
operation resistance of magnetic bearing is zero, it has a high
efficiency energy saving wind turbine. [3, 4]
IV. DIRECT DRIVE PERMANENT MAGNET WIND
TURBINE
In this paper direct drive permanent magnet wind turbine
(gearless wind turbine) connected permanent magnet
generator directly with the impeller to drive the impeller to
move, so the gear box is not needed. This kind of turbine has
many advantages, for example it can generate electricity
under the low-speed, long-life, small size, low operation,
maintenance cost and the high efficiency when low wind
speed. In the future, this kind of the wind turbine will have
great development.
V.

THE RESULTS OF THE MONITORING

The magnetic vertical axis wind turbine in this paper was

tested in the test platform (shown in Fig.1).The test ground
located in the south mountain where the wind resource is very
good in Jinan. This system includes the wind turbine, battery,
controller and monitoring system. This system can monitor
the operational status of the wind turbines. The monitoring
system consists of signal processing circuit, data acquisition
card, computer and monitoring software. This system acquires
the parameter values of the wind turbine operation by sensors

and transfers the data into computer by data acquisition card.

Computer processed and stored the data acquired; the
language of the software is LabView which is the graphical
programming language. We can get the accurate parameter
values of the wind turbine operation and can supply reliable
data for R&D personnel to evaluate and develop the wind
turbine.
Monitoring data which we obtained is shown in Table 1.

Figure 1. test platform of maglev vertical axis wind turbine

Table 1. Monitoring data

Time
2009-11-1
13:40:29
2009-11-1
13:40:34
2009-11-1
13:40:39
2009-11-1
13:40:44
2009-11-1
13:40:49
2009-11-1
13:40:54
2009-11-1
13:40:59
2009-11-1
13:41:04
2009-11-1
13:41:09
2009-11-1
13:41:14
2009-11-1
13:41:19
2009-11-1
13:41:24
2009-11-1
13:41:29
2009-11-1
13:41:34
2009-11-1
13:42:49
2009-11-1
13:42:54

WV
(m/s)

WN
(N/min)

GN
(N/min)

GU
(V)

GI
(A)

SU
(V)

SI
(A)

BU
(V)

CI
(A)

GW
(W)

SW
(W)

CW
(W)

2.87

17.59

17.59

6.38

0.10

13.47

2.31

12.64

2.21

1.15

31.20

28.03

2.43

16.53

16.53

6.58

0.11

13.51

2.24

12.64

2.15

1.29

30.31

27.30

2.81

17.16

17.16

6.53

0.15

13.46

2.10

12.64

2.05

1.72

28.31

25.98

2.66

17.53

17.53

6.48

0.21

13.42

1.86

12.63

1.86

2.40

25.05

23.55

1.85

16.17

16.17

6.34

0.08

13.42

1.77

12.61

1.65

0.94

23.87

20.87

2.05

16.22

16.22

6.37

0.09

13.37

1.75

12.60

1.63

1.06

23.47

20.67

1.86

16.14

16.14

6.29

0.08

13.43

1.87

12.61

1.74

0.919

25.17

22.04

2.33

16.40

16.40

6.27

0.05

13.34

1.62

12.59

1.47

0.560

21.72

18.60

1.60

15.25

15.25

5.41

0.00

13.29

1.50

12.58

1.31

0.066

20.04

16.52

1.06

13.30

13.30

4.93

0.01

13.29

1.50

12.57

1.32

0.059

20.07

16.60

1.38

12.58

12.58

6.13

0.01

13.31

1.59

12.57

1.39

0.106

21.20

17.57

2.27

15.23

15.23

6.44

0.30

13.37

1.56

12.59

1.65

3.39

20.95

20.87

5.07

20.58

20.58

6.53

0.36

13.37

1.56

12.60

1.70

4.08

20.88

21.51

2.65

18.68

18.68

6.09

0.15

13.35

1.68

12.59

1.61

1.59

22.50

20.34

3.98

18.84

18.84

6.76

0.38

13.26

1.14

12.55

1.32

4.50

15.17

16.67

4.97

20.75

20.75

7.32

0.47

13.34

1.13

12.57

1.45

5.97

15.18

18.28

VI. APPLICATION OF MAGNETIC SUSOENDED

SELF-PITCH VERTICAL AXIS WIND
GENERATOR
Wind and solar hybrid street lamp is one of the applications
of the magnetic suspended self-pitch vertical axis wind
generator, now it has formed a complete product system and
spread to the market (shown in Fig. 2). This vertical axis
maglev wind and solar hybrid street lamp gather wind power
and solar power in integral whole, perfectly reflects the
complement of wind and solar, is a green environmental
protection lamp which consumes new energy. We have
developed our own wind and solar hybrid street lamp
intelligent controller which uses microprocessor and pulse
width modulation charging system and at the same time it has
many functions like the perfect battery voltage monitoring,
multi-level charging and overcharge protection, unloading,
controller temperature monitoring, manual or automatic
conversion and charge status indication and so on. It is an
important part of the entire system which is simple to wiring,
easy to use, high stable, economic and reliable. This wind and
solar hybrid street lamp system has experienced a long-term
test at the Shandong University Wind Energy Experiment
Base and was running well, in the promotion process to the
market it gets wide acclaim from all social sectors.

Figure 2.Wind and solar hybrid street lamp system

VII. SUMMERY
This new vertical axis wind turbine used magnetic levitation
and self-pitch technology to improve the utilization of wind
energy, further enhance the overall effectiveness of the wind
turbines, and also reduce the cost in manufacture. By
monitoring and operating on the test platform, it is proved that
this wind turbine has its irreplaceable advantages. At present,
this vertical axis wind turbine has obtained two practical

patent certificates and passed the provincial appraisal which

says that we have reached the leading domestic level. It
comprehensively and fully demonstrates the superiority of
vertical axis wind turbines, also, the cost this novel kind of
vertical axis wind turbine is low, and can be used for
high-power stand-alone body, so it has broad prospects.
[1]
[2]
[3]

[4]

Yongdong Li and Guofeng Yuan, Development status and prospects of

China wind power generation, Electric Age, pp.16-20, March 2006
Fangjun Zhang, Technology and development direction of wind
power, Electric Age, pp.22-24, November 2005
Junliang Han, Technical characteristics and development prospects of
wind power generation equipment,
Mechanical Research and
Application, vol.17, pp.16-18, May 2004
Guoming Zhang, Reasonableness of the construction of
megawatt-class vertical axis wind turbine, Construction Machinery For
Hydraulic Engineering & Power Station, vol.17,pp.32-36, April 1995