Equivalent subdomain method for performance prediction of permanent magnet eddy current brakes

• Main Authors: Jiahao Li, Guolai Yang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2021-09-01
• Series: IET Electric Power Applications
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1049/elp2.12087

Abstract An equivalent subdomain method for calculating the performance parameters of permanent magnet eddy current brakes (ECB) is presented by combining subdomain technology with a magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC) model. The proposed method replaces the source term in the subdomain model with an equivalent current sheet applied to the boundary of an equivalent region. The relative permeability of the equivalent region is related to design parameters rather than infinite ones and is obtained by the MEC model considering the eddy current reaction. A small prototype experimental platform is established. The validity of the proposed method is verified by the experiment and the finite element method (FEM). The results show that the braking force predicted by the method match well with those obtained by the FEM without considering the edge effect, and are slightly larger than those measured by the experiment. Considering the static edge effect, the results of the proposed method agree well with the measured values and FEM results. The method also proves to be effective in the performance prediction of the ECB with different design parameters. In addition, the limitation of the proposed method is discussed in detail.