Design and Performance Study of a Large-Scale Brushless Doubly Fed Reluctance Generator

The brushless doubly fed reluctance generator (BDFRG) is considered a viable generator alternative to be used in large variable speed wind turbines due to its various benefits including partial rating converter, absence of rotor winding and brushless operation. A literature review shows that there is still a lack of research a design procedure to make this machine widely used in such applications. This paper focuses on the design of a large scale BDFRG by estimating the initial parameters from a small-scale machine. Some fundamental issues concerning the BDFRG design are addressed. The performance of a 1.5 MW design is examined through finite element analysis (FEA) employing Ansys Maxwell software.