A New Concentrated Windings Surface Mounted Permanent Magnet Synchronous

Machine for Wind Energy Application

Mehdi T. Abolhassani, Member IEEE
Wavecrest Labs
45600 Terminal Dr.
Dulles, VA 20166
Tel:(703) 880-3972
E-mail: mehdi.abolhasani@wavecrestlabs.com

Abstract- The concentrated windings designs are often used
in small BLDC motors as well as in AC servomotors due to their
shorter end windings and smaller packing size. They are not yet
frequently used in larger electrical machines due to concerns
about torque density. For example, for a design with slot/ pole
ratio of 1.5, the winding factor decreases to 0.866 which the
penalty of smaller packaging size is translated to approximately
33.3% more copper losses as compared with a reference
machine with winding factor of unity. In this paper, a new
concentrated windings surface mounted permanent magnet
machine for wind energy application with higher power density
is proposed. The proposed machine utilizes 48 poles and 45
slots. The analysis shows while the proposed machine enjoys the
privilege of shorter end windings and smaller packaging size,
higher torque density is achieved through the winding factor of
0.952. This design with its novel pole and slot configuration,
poses zero cogging torque and negligible torque ripple which
these features make it a promising technology for wind energy
applications. The mathematical model of the proposed machine
is developed and is verified with finite element analysis.
I INTRODUCTION
As environmental & economic concerns increase
worldwide, high efficiency motor/drive is becoming
increasingly important. Replacing direct current (DC)
machines and alternating current (AC) induction machines
with permanent magnet (PM) machines has recently gained
great interest. PM motors are gaining popularity wide variety
of reasons. Because the excitation of a PM motor is provided
by permanent magnets, brushes and slip rings are eliminated,
resulting in a simple and rugged structure. Permanent
magnet excitation is current-free and lossless, enabling PM
motors to rank the highest efficiency and power density
(kW/kg) as compared to other electric motors. The structure
and unique operation mode of PM motors provide additional
advantages in speed and position control.
The increase rate of depletion of fossil energy resources in
one hand and growing energy demand on the other hand has
initiated considerable research activity worldwide to explore
means for tapping of renewable energy resources. Wind
energy, due to its free availability and its clean and renewable
character, ranks as the most promising renewable energy
resource that could play a key role in solving the worldwide
energy crisis. In the area of wind and other power generation
systems, where the input resource power varies considerably,
variable-speed generation (VSG) is more attractive than fixed
speed systems. In these systems, a maximum power point
tracker adjusts a system quantity (such as the rotational speed
in the case of wind turbines) to maximize turbine power
output.[1-4]
The use of windings concentrated around the teeth offer
obvious advantages for the electric machines with radial air
gap. With such windings the volume of copper used in the
end-windings can be significantly reduced, in particular if the
axial length of motor is small. Furthermore, a significant
reduction of the joule losses is achieved, and the efficiency of
the motor is improved as compared to more traditional
structures with one slot per pole per phase. The windings
structure is also easier to realize than a lap winding and the
number of coils are also reduced. These structures present a
fractional number of slots per pole and per phase. [5-8]
In fractional-slot concentrated windings, winding factor
plays an important role in torque production which be
effected by shorting the coil pitch. A low winding factor in
fractional slot concentrated windings machines, directly
impacts on torque density and efficiency. Usually, the
concentrated windings BLDC and permanent magnet motors
suffer from low winding factor of typically 0.866.
In this paper a new concentrated windings surface
mounted permanent magnet synchronous machine for wind
energy applications with higher power density is proposed.
This design utilizes 48 poles and 45 slots. The analysis
shows that the winding factor for this machine is about 0.952
which is very close to unity while this design enjoys from
compact packaging and higher efficiency due to shorter end
windings as compared with distributed windings. The main
advantage of this design is almost zero cogging torque and
maximum of 0.4% torque ripple. This papers details the
analytical and finite element analysis as well as simulation
results.
Figure 1: The proposed system topology

0-7803-8987-5/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE. 931

 II SYSTEM DESCRIPTION:
The proposed system configuration is shown in fig.1. The
system includes a wind turbine, the novel concentrated
windings surface mounted permanent magnet machine, a
diode rectifier, a step-up dc-dc converter, and current
regulated PWM voltage source inverter. The wind generation
system is connected to three-phase 480V system. The DC bus
system is fixed at 800 Volts. Therefore, the wind energy
system can continue to operate by pitch control after reaching
the output voltage of machine to DC bus voltage level.
III ANALYSIS OF THE PROPOSED CONCENTRATED
WINDINGS PM MACHINE:
A new fractional-slot concentrated windings surface
mounted permanent magnet machine for wind energy
application is proposed. This electrical machine utilizes 48
poles and 45 slots in three parallel circuits. The advantages of
the proposed system can be classified as:
Compact and light weight;
Higher torque density with fundamental winding
factor of 0.95;
The proposed design poses with almost zero
cogging torque. This low cogging torque amplitude is
expected due to the high value of least common multiple
(LCM) of the number of slots and number of poles (720) that
determines the cogging torque frequency [11];
Lower torque ripple (maximum of 0.4%);
Shorter end windings via concentrated windings
configuration;
Higher efficiency;
Small moment of inertia.
III.1 Calculation of Winding Factor
It is well known that the torque produced in any electrical
machine is proportional to the product of the MMF per pole
and the flux per pole. The average electromagnetic torque of
a surface mounted permanent magnet machine with
concentrated windings fed by sinusoidal current is given by:
1
T= K w . nl . nc .Q. B g . A g .I. cos( ) (1)
4
where:
Kw : Winding factor
nl : Number of layers
nc : Number of turns per coil
Q : Number of slots
Bg : Peak no-load fundamental flux density in airgap
Ag : Airgap area
I : Peak current
Cos : power factor.
The winding factor can be translated to torque production
coefficient i.e. a low winding factor needs to be compensated
by increasing the current or number of turns. In both cases
the low winding factor associates with generating more heat,
saturation of the iron and low efficiency. The concentrated
windings machines with slot/ pole ratio of 1.5 which is
widely used in application such as in Toyota Prius [12] (i.e.
12 poles, 18 slots), offer a winding factor of 0.866. This
means that the current density 13.3% and in result, copper
losses 33.3% are higher as compared to a distributed
windings machine for the same amount of torque, with
assuming same slot fill factor, same electromagnetic design
and disregarding the end windings losses.
The windings configuration of the proposed concentrated
windings surface mounted permanent magnet machines is
shown in fig.2. In following the winding factor is calculated.
The winding factor is given by:
K w = K p . K d . K skew (2)
Where Kp , Kd , and Kskew are the pitch, distribution and
skewing factors, respectively.

C- A+ A- A- A+ A+ A- A- A+ A+ A- B+ B- B- B+ B+ B- B- B+ B+ B- C+ C- C- C+ C+ C- C- C+ C+

Slot # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Mechanical 0 8 16 24 32 40 48 56 64 72 80 88 96 104 112

Angle
Electrical
0 168 -24 144 -48 120 -72 96 -96 72 -120 48 -144 24 -168
Angle
EMF Phasors EA2 EA4 EA6 EA8
Elements EA1 EA10
EA3 EA5 EA7 EA9
Figure 2: The windings configuration and representing mechanical and electrical angle of each EMF phasor element

932
 EA1
o
12
-EA2
-EA3
EA4
EA5
-EA6
-EA10 EA8
-EA7
EA9
EA
Figure 3: The winding EMF phasor elements and the resultant
One of the advantages of the proposed machine is that the
torque ripple is very low so there is no need for skewing;
therefore the skewing factor is unity. A general calculation
method that incorporates both the pitch and distribution
factors is presented. In this method, the electromagnetic
force resultant that can be built up for one phase is
calculated. If the slot pitch is not shortened, all EMF
elements are distributed in the same electrical angles. But in
fractional-slot concentrated windings configuration which the
coil pitch is shorted, each EMF phasor produced an electrical
angle. In a three phase system, the phase EMF phasors are
symmetrically displaced by 120 from each other. An
important constraint for concentrated windings is of course
that the two closest winding elements next to a tooth belong
to the same phase, in order to enable a tooth coil.
Consequently, these two winding elements have opposite
winding directions. The resulting EMF per phase is the sum
of the elements phasors assigned to that phase, as it can be
shown as:
S
E phase = E i
i =1
10
E An
n =1
Kw = = 0.952 (5)
10
III.2 Proposed Permanent Magnet Machine Design:
The geometry of the proposed concentrated windings
surface mounted permanent magnet machine for wind energy
system application is shown in fig.4. The proposed machine
has 48 poles and 45 slots. As, it was shown in previous
section, higher torque density is achieved through higher
winding factor of 0.952. The parameters of the proposed
design are listed in table 1. The finite element analysis has
been conducted on the proposed machine. The phase back-
emf at maximum speed of 700 RPM is shown in fig. 5. The
variation of peak back-emf versus speed is depicted in fig.6.
As it is clear, the waveform of back-emf is very close to
sinusoidal.
The output torque with current rating of 30 A per phase is
plotted in fig.7. As the figure shows, the torque ripple is less
than 0.4%. The performance characteristics of the
proposed design are summarized in table 2. The low cogging
torque amplitude is expected due to the high value of least
common multiple (LCM) of the number of slots and number
of poles (720) that determines the cogging torque frequency
[11]. As it is shown in table 2 the efficiency of the machine at
rated power is about 0.96%.
(3)

Where S is the number of winding elements for each phase

and Ei is EMF phasor for each winding element. However, if
the pitch coil wasnt shortened, this summation was equal to
number of winding elements for each phase.
So the winding factor Kw can be represented as:

E phase
Kw = (4)
S
In fig.2 the windings distribution for proposed machine is
shown. The mechanical angle and electrical angle associated
with each EMF phasor elements for all the three phase
windings are depicted. In fig.3 the EMF phasor elements for
phase A are shown. Figure 4 : Geometry of the proposed PM machine

The winding factor for the proposed windings distribution

can be calculated as:

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 TABLE 1:
THE DESIGN PARAMETER OF THE PROPOSED PM MACHINE
600
Stator outer diameter 304 mm

Peak phase back-EMF(Volts)

500
Airgap diameter 242 mm
400
Airgap length 1 mm
300
Iron stack length 120 mm
200
Rotor inner diameter 212
100
Number of poles 48
0
Number of slots 45 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Speed (RPM)
Number of turns per coil 50
Number of coils per phase 15 Figure 6: The peak phase back-emf versus speed
Number of parallel circuits 3
Slot fill factor 70%
Current per phase 30A (rms)
Max current density at peak current 10 A/mm2

TABLE 2:
THE PERFORMANCE SPECIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED PM
MACHINE
Rated power output 25 kW
Rated phase current 30A(rms)
Rated speed 520 RPM
Rated torque 465 N.m
Maximum speed 700 RPM
Torque ripple %0.4
Figure 7: Torque at peak current
Cogging torque 0.01 N.m
Resistance per phase @ 85 C 0.37
Copper loss at peak current 1000 W
III.3 Flux Distribution Paths

Core loss at rated speed 100 W Finite element analysis has been conducted on the
proposed PM machine. The flux distribution paths for the
Efficiency at rated power %96
proposed machine at full load are shown in fig.8. The flux
density distribution in rotor and stator back iron at full load
condition is depicted in fig.9. The maximum of flux density
600 happens in teeth which is about 1.45 T.
400

200 III.4 Electromagnetic Forces on Bearing:

Back emf (Volts)

0 The magnetostrictive forces in airgap of an electrical

machine cause mechanical stress in the rotor. The radial
1
4
7
10
13
16
19
22
25
28
31
34
37
40
43
46
49
52
55
58

-200
forces are attractive forces between the stator and the rotor,
-400 while magnestostrictive forces act to stretch iron in the
direction of magnetic field. Maxwells stress tensor equation
-600
Rotor position (Degrees)
gives the magnetic force density in the airgap and it is given
by:
Figure 5: The phase back-emf at 700 RPM

934
 Figure 8: Flux distribution paths in geometry of the proposed machine
Figure 9 : Flux density distribution in geometry of the proposed machine
( , t ) =
1
2 0
[ ]
B 2n ( , t ) Bt2 ( , t ) (6)
Where B n ( , t ) and Bt ( , t ) are the radial and tangential
components of the airgap flux density as function of time t
and angular position of and 0 is the permeability of free
space. The permeability of iron material even in saturation
condition is much higher than air. Therefore, the flux enters
and leaves the stator and rotor surfaces perpendicularly. This
means that the tangential component of airgap flux density
can be neglected. Then the radial magnetic stress can be
simplified to:
935
Figure 10 : Presentation of electromagnetic forces on the rotor at full load
condition
( , t ) =
1
2 0
[B2n ( , t )] (7)
Equation (7) shows the mechanical magnetic forces on the
bearing. In fig.5 the finite element analysis result for the
stress magnetic forces over the rotor under full load is shown.
As it is clear these forces are balanced and the resultant of the
forces is zero therefore the stress on the bearing caused by
the magnetic forces is zero.
IV CONCLUSIONS:
In this paper a novel fractional slot concentrated windings
permanent magnet machine for wind energy application was
proposed. The proposed machine utilizes 48 poles and 45
slots. This machine design poses with higher power density
and smaller packaging size. The big advantages of this design
are negligible cogging torque and low torque ripple is 0.4%.
The phase back-emf of the proposed machines seems
sinusoidal thus parasitic effects such as harmonic iron losses
are minimal. Analytical and finite element analyses for this
machine were presented. Electromagnetic forces on bearing
was also investigated and it was shown that
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