Distributed Windings with Flux Barriers Applied to PM Wind Generators

This paper presents a new winding topology, which is basically a classical distributed winding with flux barriers in each tooth. Using the basic theory of magnetic circuits, it can be shown that this winding configuration can have much higher equivalent winding factors as the original one without flux barriers for certain harmonics. The analytical calculations are verified by appropriate FEA simulations. As an application example, the proposed winding topology is used for a 10MW PM wind generator. As reference, a wind generator with a conventional distributed winding is used. The results show that using the new winding topology leads to a significant reduction in active length. Therefore, about 20% of the magnet and 30% of the iron material can be saved compared to the reference machine.