Optimal Design of Permanent Magnetic Actuator for Permanent Magnet Reduction and Dynamic Characteristic Improvement using Response Surface Methodology

Permanent magnetic actuators (P.M.A.s) are widely used to drive medium-voltage-class vacuum circuit breakers (V.C.B.s). In this paper, a method for design optimization of a P.M.A. for V.C.B.s is discussed. An optimal design process employing the response surface method (R.S.M.) is proposed. In order to calculate electromagnetic and mechanical dynamic characteristics, an initial P.M.A. model is subjected to numerical analysis using finite element analysis (F.E.A.), which is validated by comparing the calculated dynamic characteristics of the initial P.M.A. model with no-load test results. Using tables of mixed orthogonal arrays and the R.S.M., the initial P.M.A. model is optimized to minimize the weight of the permanent magnet (P.M.) and to improve the dynamic characteristics. Finally, the dynamic characteristics of the optimally designed P.M.A. are compared to those of the initially designed P.M.A. KCI Citation Count: 1