Review of Related Work

In this part of the chapter, the design of a simple permanent magnet generator for small scale wind
turbine will be discussed. Calculations of power generated by the wind turbine from the conversion of
Wind energy to Electrical Energy are also considered for the design and for maximum power point
tracking. Also a brief explanation on the topology of Multimode Synchronous Buck Boost Converter will
be tackled.
1. Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator Design

Instead of using a gearbox for power generation of a wind turbine a direct-drive axial
flux permanent magnet generator is employed to reduce cost and minimize maintenance as
much as possible. [rrw4] AFPMG is composed of a stator plate, mounted with coils, located
between two rotor plates with magnets mounted around it shown in Figure 1.1. In this position,
the rotation of the rotor plates will cause an induced voltage across the terminal of the coils;
therefore it will generate power to be delivered to the load. [1]

Figure 1.1: Generator Design Concept [2]

SERIES INDUCTANCE

SERIES RESISTANCE

LOAD
RESISTANCE

AC SOURCE

Figure 1.2: Simple Electronic Model of AFPMG [1]

In Figure 1.1 the induced voltage can be expressed as a sinusoidal by this equation:
( )

Eq. (1.1)

Where,
N is the number of turns,
A is the magnets area,
B is the magnetic flux density, and
felec is the generators electrical frequency. [1]

The frequency of the generator can be expressed by:

Eq. (1.2)

As the number of turns of each coil increases, its inductance and resistance will also
increase.
The inductance is indicated by this equation:
Eq. (1-2)
Where,
is the cores permeability (where o for air core),
N is the number of turns,
AC is the coils window area,
B is the magnetic flux density, and
l is the total path length of flux enclosing the current. [1]
Then the resistance is expressed as:
Eq. (1-3)

Where,
is the conductors resistivity, and
A is the cross sectional area perpendicular to the current. [1]

2. Power Characteristics of Wind Turbine

Figure 2.1 [3]

In Figure 2.1, the power flow of the wind turbine is shown. Wind turbine converts
kinetic energy provided by the wind into electrical energy.
Power of the wind (Pw) is expressed by this equation:
Eq. (2-1)
where
is the air density [kg/m3],
R is the blade length [m],
v is the wind linear velocity [m/s] and
S = R2 is the swept area of the blades. [3-4]
Then the linear kinetic energy provided by the wind is converted to mechanical
rotational energy. The mechanical rotational energy is generated by aerodynamic lift force when
the wind strikes the blades of the wind turbine. The power conveyed onto the shaft (Pt) is
actually the mechanical power generated earlier and this also will be the input power for the
generator. [3]

Power on the shaft (Pt) is expressed by this equation:

( )

Eq. (2-2)

where Cp() is the turbine power coefficient. According to Betz Law about 59.3% of the
total wind power (shown in Figure 2.2) is the maximum theoretical turbine power that can be
extracted to a wind turbine. is the tip speed ratio presented by Eq. (2-3).
Eq. (2-3)
where is the shaft speed. [3]

Figure 2.2: Cp vs. for different types of blade geometries [3].

In Figure 2.2, the peak of the coefficient curve for a given wind speed is also the maximum
power point of the wind turbine. Also at this point, the maximum tip speed ratio is achieved. To achieve
optimum tip speed ratio for any given wind speed, maximum power point tracking is performed. [3-4]
Mechanical energy onto the shaft is then converted to electrical energy by the Permanent
Magnet Synchronous Generator. Then, the three phase output of the generator is rectified and
regulated by a converter.
The output power of the whole system is reduced by the efficiency of the converter. This is
expressed by the equation:
( )
where

eff is

the overall efficiency of the power converter. [3-4]

3. Multimode Synchronous Buck-boost Converter

In order to regulate the output voltage and current from the wind turbine to a desired
value, a converter will be connected to the rectified output of the wind turbine generator. In
Torres paper, a Multimode Synchronous Buck-Boost Converter topology is used in renewable
energy applications that have a wide input voltage range as shown in Figure 3.1. [4]

D5

VOUT

D2

Q1
D3

D7

Q4

Buck_DRV
Boost_Diode_DRV
D1

Cin
V1

V2

V3

D4

D6

D8

Cout

Buck_Diode_DRV

Boost_DRV
Q3

Q2

Figure 3.1: Multi-mode Buck-Boost Converter [Torres]

MSBBC is a buck converter cascaded with a boost converter that has three modes of
operation: (1) Buck mode operation for voltage step-down; when the input voltage is greater
than the output voltage, this happens when turning off the boost FET. (2) Boost mode operation
for voltage step-up; when the input voltage is less than the output voltage, this happens when a
100% duty cycle is provided through the buck gate drive. And lastly, (3)Buck-Boost mode for
output regulation. To regulate the output current this converter also utilizes Maximum Power
Point Tracking that tracks the maximum power generated by the wind turbine. [4]

References:
[1] M. Escoto and N. Ramos, Axial-flux Permanent Magnet Generator Modeling for Wind Generator
Power Prediction.
[2] J.R. Bumby, N. Stannard, J Dominy, N. McLeod A Permanent Magnet Generator for Small Scale Wind
and Water Turbines Proc. of the International Conference on Electrical Machines, 2008.
[3] N. Milivojevic, I. Stamenkovic, and N. Schofield, Power and Energy Analysis of Commercial Small
Wind Turbine Systems.
[4] J. Torres, Maximum Power Point Tracking for a Small Scale Wind Turbine with Permanent Magnet
Synchronous Generator