Optimal Design of Six-Phase Radial Flux Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator for Small Scale Wind Turbine Applications

This paper presents optimal design of a six-phase permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) for use in direct drive wind turbines. High Dimensions and manufacturing cost and low efficiency are the disadvantages of generators connected to wind turbines without gearbox because of their low nominal speed. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to optimize the design of the PMSG based on the reduction of losses and the construction cost of the generator. For this purpose, the relations governing the design of the radial flux PMSG have been introduced and then a design algorithm has been extracted. Subsequently, by defining a multi-objective optimization problem and using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, the optimum design variables are determined in a suitable range and the minimum losses and construction cost of the generator are obtained. The optimal design has been verified by using finite element analysis.