Simulation of an optimal design of permanent magnet direct-drive wind turbine generator

Permanent Magnet Direct Drive (PMDD) configuration is seen to provide more advantages compared to its gearbox counterpart, namely absence of gears, less maintenance, higher efficiency, and growing research field. However, PMDD configuration generally has a big ring size and expensive construction cost. To potentially reduce the cost of PMDD, various research designs were investigated, including reduction of weight, lessen of material usage, and simulations on electrical losses. However, as of this time of writing, there has been no research design on the placement of permanent magnets (PM) for optimal energy generation. Thus, this study aims to make an optimal design of a PMDD ring by varying three main parameters, namely in-between magnet clearance, rotor-stator distance, and rotational speed. SolidWorks was used to design the model, ANSYS Fluent was used to simulate the various design combinations, and JMP software was used to analyse the data statistically. Results showed that amongst the three parameters, only the rotor-stator distance significantly influenced the power output of the simulated equipment. Further investigation can be done on the variation of magnet numbers, increase combinations, and investigation of power losses.