Magnetic Geared Radial Axis Vertical Wind Turbine for Low Velocity Regimes

School of Engineering, Taylor’s University, Malaysia.

^* Corresponding author: aravindcv@ieee.org

Abstract

In the 21st century, every country is seeking an alternative source of energy especially the renewable sources. There are considerable developments in the wind energy technology in recent years and in more particular on the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) as they are modular, less installation cost and portable in comparison with that of the horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) systems. The cut-in speed of a conventional wind turbine is 3.5 m/s to 5 m/s. Mechanical geared generators are commonly found in wind technology to step up power conversion to accommodate the needs of the generator. Wind turbine gearboxes suffer from overload problem and frequent maintenance in spite of the high torque density produced. However, an emerging alternative to gearing system is Magnetic Gear (MG) as it offers significant advantages such as free from maintenance and inherent overload protection. In this project, numerical analysis is done on designed magnetic gear greatly affects the performance of the generator in terms of voltage generation. Magnetic flux density is distributed evenly across the generator as seen from the uniform sinusoidal output waveform. Consequently, the interaction of the magnetic flux of the permanent magnets has shown no disturbance to the output of the generator as the voltage generated shows uniform waveform despite the rotational speed of the gears. The simulation is run at low wind speed and the results show that the generator starts generating a voltage of 240 V at a wind speed of 1.04 m/s. This shows great improvement in the operating capability of the wind turbine.