Radial forces analysis and rotational speed test of radial permanent magnetic bearing for horizontal axis wind turbine applications

Permanent magnet bearings (PMB) are contact free bearings which utilize the forces generated by the magnets. PMB in this work is a type of radial PMB, which functions as the radial bearings of the Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) rotor shaft. Radial PMB should have a greater radial force than the radial force HAWT rotor shaft (bearing load). This paper presents a modeling and experiments to calculate the radial force of the radial PMB. This paper also presents rotational speed test of the radial PMB compared to conventional bearings for HAWT applications. Modeling using COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b with the magnetic fields physics models. Experiments were conducted by measuring the displacement of the rotor to the stator for a given load variation. Results of the two methods showed that the large displacement then the radial force would be greater. Radial forces of radial PMB is greater than radial forces of HAWT rotor shaft. The rotational speed test results of HAWT that used radial PMB produced higher rotary than conventional bearings with an average increase of 87.4%. Increasing rotational speed occured because radial PMB had no friction. HAWT that used radial PMB rotated at very low wind speeds are 1.4 m/s with a torque of 0.043 Nm, while the HAWT which uses conventional bearing started rotating at a wind speed of 4.4 m/s and required higher torque of 0.104 N.