MEC-Based Sizing of a Hybrid-Excited Claw Pole Alternator

The paper is aimed at a magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC)-based sizing of a novel hybrid-excited claw pole alternator. It consists in a claw pole concept with a NdFeB permanent magnet (PM) excitation in the rotor and a dc one in the stator, with the homopolar flux eradicated owing to a magnetic barrier inserted between the stator yoke and lamination. The proposed MEC considers both linear and saturated magnetic circuit, with a focus on the modeling of the leakage fluxes. The developed model is applied for the prediction of the no-load characteristic which is validated by 3-D finite-element analysis (FEA). Then, a dual FEA-experimental validation is carried out considering the case of a dc excitation. Moreover, the proposed MEC makes the investigation of the influent sizing parameters on the machine back-electromotive force (EMF) production capability easy. This latter is enhanced owing to the integration of two ring ferrite PMs linked to the stator, along with a reduction of the volume of the NdFeB PM in the rotor. It has been found that the gained improvement is better than the benefit yielded by as many pole number ferrite PMs inserted between the claws.