Design of Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Generator for Solar Chimney Power Plant Ramin Alimardani r.alimardani@ec.iut.ac.ir Date of Submission: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran Degree: M.Sc. Language: Persian Supervisor: Dr. Ahmadreza Tabesh : Today, with ever-increasing energy consumption, use of renewable energy is crucial. The sun’s energy in terms of emissions, has its own special places. Solar chimney power plant is one of the new methods of harvesting solar energy. Solar chimney is a renewable-energy power plant for generating electricity from low temperature solar heat. Solar chimney has a three main components; collector, chimney and the turbine-generators. The collector absorbs solar energy, thereby warming the air inside the collector. Collector by creating a greenhouse space, creates a temperature difference between inside and outside of collector. The temperature difference created within the collector and external environment, creating a convection flow. This convection caused by the temperature difference between two environments, driven out by the chimney and a mode creates suction in the chimney. Rotational kinetic energy of suction air by the turbine is converted into energy and finally, the rotational energy is converted into electrical energy by the turbine-generators. Given the pace of heated air inside the collector, the use of low speed generators is inevitable. In addition to the advantages of permanent magnet machines; axial flux permanent magnet machines has a large diameter and low axial length, so it can be connected directly to the turbines of solar chimney power plant. For design a solar chimney power plant generators, structure and geometry of the generator calculated with using the general sizing equations. In low speed machines, non-overlapping winding with suitable combinations of poles and slots is proposed that end windings and cogging torque is minimized. Analysis of axial flux machines is done with the help of three-dimensional finite element method but this method is very time consuming and for a repetitive design process is not suitable. By using quasi 3-D it is possible to analysis magnetic flux density of axial flux machines. At the end modeling of the magnetic flux density in the air-gap proposals, we study the cogging torque and introduce the suitable cases for using in solar chimney power plants. Keywords: Solar chimney power plant, Collector, Axial flux permanent magnet machines, Cogging torque.
