Characterization on the no- and on-load operations of an improved claw pole machine

Abstract

The paper deals with 3D FEA-based characterization of the no- and on-load features of a claw pole alternator (CPA) with an inter-pole permanent magnets (PMs) mounted in between the rotor claws, yielding the abbreviation IPM-CPA. The PMs play a dual role: (i) the eradication of the claw-to-claw leakage flux and (ii)the enhancement of the flux per pole. In order to highlight the effects of the inter pole PMs, the 3D-FEA is initiated by the characterization of the no- and on-load features of the conventional CPA. These latter are experimentally-validated. Then, the case of the IPM CPA is treated. The obtained features are systematically-compared to those exhibited by the conventional CPA. A special attention is paid to the investigation of the harmonic content of the armature phase voltage at no- and on-load operation.