The Rural Electrification Research Group (RurERG), which is part of the Smart RUE (Smart grids Research Unit of the Electrical and Computer Engineering School) of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), has developed an open source software tool for modeling and designing AFPM generators in wind electric systems.
Designers and practitioners involved with small scale wind electric systems can now take advantage of three design tools making up the OpenAFPM tools series: MagnAFPM, UserAFPM and OptiAFPM. MagnAFPM can be used for designing a generator for a specific set of rotor blades and a specific set of permanent magnet dimensions. UserAFPM can be used to validate the performance of a specific generator geometry by performing a finite element analysis using FEMM. OptiAFPM uses the particle swarm optimisation (PSO) to optimise the dimensions of the permanent magnets used in the generator design for a specific set of rotor blades, while minimising the generator’s cost and mass and maximising its efficiency.
To start using the tools click here.
