This article serves as an overview of existing models of permanent magnets (PMs) for electrical machines. The review study starts with the linear recoil model, which is commonly used to describe the ...reversible part of the demagnetizing curve. It is a simple model, especially useful for representing materials with high anisotropy, such as ferrite, NdFeB, and SmCo. The model is harder to apply for nonlinear materials, such as Alnico, but still possible since their recoil curves are linear. The study shows how the linear recoil model could be extended to include irreversible demagnetization, temperature dependence, and angular dependence. All such models have their advantages and disadvantages, which will be discussed further. Both the magnetization and the risk of demagnetization are temperature-dependent. It could be noted that NdFeB has an increased risk of demagnetization at high temperatures, while ferrite has it at very low temperatures. The temperature dependence is described and compared for several materials, also including simplifying models. There are different methods to include the inclination angle of an applied magnetic field when studying the demagnetization of PMs. Several models describe different phenomena associated with the underlying dynamics of magnetism. Such models could then consider coercivity mechanisms and coherent rotation of magnetization, both with the Stoner-Wohlfarth model and models of domain wall motions.
Electromagnetic modelling of electrical machines through finite element analysis is an important design tool for detailed studies of high resolution. Through the usage of finite element analysis, one ...can study the electromagnetic fields for information that is often difficult to acquire in an experimental test bench. The requirement for accurate result is that the magnetic circuit is modelled in a correct way, which may be more difficult to maintain for rare earth free permanent magnets with an operating range that is more likely to be close to non-linear regions for the relation between magnetic flux density and magnetic field strength. In this paper, the inclination angles of the magnetic flux density, magnetic field strength and magnetization are studied and means to reduce the inclination angles are investigated. Both rotating and linear machines are investigated in this paper, with different current densities induced in the stator windings. By proper design of the pole shoes, one can reduce the inclination angles of the fields in the permanent magnet. By controlling the inclination angles, one can both enhance the performance of the magnetic circuit and increase the accuracy of simpler models for permanent magnet modelling.
Low speed, high torque machines are used in wind turbines where the turbine rotor is directly connected to the generator. A permanent magnet synchronous generator using high-energy rare-earth ...permanent magnets (PMs) is one common choice for this application, but rare-earth PMs have supply insecurities and cost risks. A rare-earth free 32-pole PM generator, using ferrite PMs in a spoke-type rotor, for use in a 12 kW experimental wind turbine is built and tested. Voltages and currents at load and no load are measured, as well as the magnetic field in the end regions of the machine. The generator can deliver the required power at nominal speed and has low harmonic content in the output. The electrical measurements are compared to two-dimensional finite element design calculations and the experimental results are lower than expected from simulations. The measured voltage is lower than expected, requiring a higher current than calculated for the rated power. Three-dimensional magnetic field simulations show that there are leakage flux paths in the end-regions that the two-dimensional design calculations overlook, explaining the discrepancy between simulations and measurements.
Different types of linear generators are simulated and their power flow in the air gap is investigated. The results are compared to the analytical expressions derived in Part 1. The simulations and ...the analytical expressions in Part 1 show the same general behaviour, but the magnitudes are lower for the analytical expressions. One explanation for the difference in magnitude can be that the harmonics of the electric and magnetic fields contribute to the power flow, which is not accounted for in the analytical expressions. Due to results from Part 1, it is investigated if changing the number of poles can decrease the tangential power flow while the normal power flow stays the same. As was suspected, changing the number of poles affected several other factors, which lead to an increase in the normal power flow when increasing the number of poles, even though the electrical power was the same. The tangential power flow also decreased for three out of four generators. Thereby, increasing the number of poles while keeping the same length of the machine, at the cost of reduced pole‐pitch, should be done with precaution.
The wave energy converter (WEC) studied and developed at Uppsala University in Sweden is a point absorbing buoy connected to a linear generator (LG) on the seabed. Previous studies have improved the ...sustainability of the generator, changing its magnets from Nd2Fe14B-magnets to ferrites. In this paper, the magnetic circuit of the linear generator is further studied. Ferrite magnets of two different types (Y30 and Y40) are studied along with different shapes of pole shoes for the system. The finite element method (FEM) simulations in a program called Ace are performed. The results show that a linear generator including both Y30 and Y40 magnets and shortened T-shaped pole shoes can generate a similar magnetic energy in the airgap as a linear generator only containing Y40 magnets and rectangular pole shoes. This shows that the magnetic circuit can be altered, opening up sizes and strengths of magnets for different retailers, and thereby possibly lowering magnet cost and transportation. This work was previously presented as a conference at the European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC) 2017 in Cork, Ireland; this manuscript has been carefully revised and some discussions, on magnet costs for example, have been added to this paper.
Electricity production from ocean waves with different design topologies is a topic of big research interest. Many of such topologies are based on submerged linear generators which inherently ...introduce end forces. In this paper, the detent force is investigated for two different winding patterns using Maxwell stress tensor in a finite element software. Induced voltage is also investigated for active stator area and the unequal contributions due to stator ends. Two ways of overcoming the end forces are further investigated: The first method reduces the magnetic flux difference when the translator is surrounded by stator and air, respectively. The second aims at countering the end forces at both ends for full active stator area. The first investigated end effect compensation decreased the end effects but increased the attraction forces. The second end effect compensation decreased the end forces during full active stator area with little effect on the attraction forces.
Electricity production from ocean waves with different solutions is a topic of major research interest. Many of such designs are based on linear generators that inherently introduce end forces. In ...this paper, detent force using Maxwell Stress Tensor and induced voltage is initially investigated for two different winding patterns for a generator topology with buried magnets in a finite element software. Two ways of overcoming the end forces are further examined: the first method reduces the magnetic flux variations of the translator between stator and air. The second method aims at countering the end forces at both ends for full active stator area. A comparison is then made between buried and surface-mounted topologies for the second end effect compensation method. Both no-load and load conditions are investigated in the comparison. The end effect compensation shows promising results for both topologies. Some clear similarities of the extended stator used to counter the end forces are also apparent, where the stator extensions completely cover the outer poles of both topologies. The results also indicate a longer full active stator area for the buried topology for the same pole-pitch and stroke length, resulting in a higher average voltage for partial stator overlap.
Within the area of permanent magnet electrical machines, there is an ongoing focus on replacing the rare earth permanent magnets with alternatives. An option is hard ferrites, commonly used in other ...applications. The relatively low coercive field strength of the ferrite magnets makes irreversible demagnetization an area that should not be neglected. In this paper, a methodology is proposed for the optimization of a slow-moving linear generator simulated in a finite element environment. The no-load phase voltage is maximized while accounting for iron saturation and permanent magnet irreversible demagnetization. This demagnetization is considered when the translator is alongside either the stator or air. The inclination angle between magnetization and magnetic field strength is accounted for by adjusting the intrinsic coercivity for each element of the permanent magnets. Characteristics for the magnet grades Y30 and Y40 are used in the optimization process. The velocity of the translator is set to resemble a speed common to wave power applications. Commercial finite element software is used together with two optimization algorithms: the genetic algorithm and the particle swarm optimization. The results of these optimization algorithms reach similar optimal solutions for the considered objective function, assuring a result close to a global maximum. The results also show a great difference in the optimal geometry for the two magnet grades and highlight the need to account for irreversible demagnetization when designing generators with ferrite magnets.
When subtitles are burned into a video, an error can sometimes occur in the encoder that results in the same subtitle being burned into several frames, resulting in subtitles becoming frozen. This ...thesis provides a way to detect frozen video subtitles with the help of an implemented text detector and classifier. Two types of classifiers, naïve classifiers and machine learning classifiers, are tested and compared on a variety of different videos to see how much a machine learning approach can improve the performance. The naïve classifiers are evaluated using ground truth data to gain an understanding of the importance of good text detection. To understand the difficulty of the problem, two different machine learning classifiers are tested, logistic regression and random forests. The result shows that machine learning improves the performance over using naïve classifiers by improving the specificity from approximately 87.3% to 95.8% and improving the accuracy from 93.3% to 95.5%. Random forests achieve the best overall performance, but the difference compared to when using logistic regression is small enough that more computationally complex machine learning classifiers are not necessary. Using the ground truth shows that the weaker naïve classifiers would be improved by at least 4.2% accuracy, thus a better text detector is warranted. This thesis shows that machine learning is a viable option for detecting frozen video subtitles.