A new interior permanent-magnet radial-flux eddy-current coupler

Herein, a rotating interior permanent-magnet radial-flux eddy-current coupler is studied. In the proposed coupler, permanent-magnets (PMs) located inside the inner rotating part of the coupler are orthogonal to the air-gap, and a copper sheet is paced on the inner surface of the outer rotating part. It is worth noting that in this structure, besides utilizing the rectangular-shaped PM, there is no centrifugal force on PMs, and they are mechanically protected by the holder as well. Also, the demagnetization influence of the reaction fields and the heat originated from the currents within the CS on PMs is very low, all of which could extend the lifetime of the device. A two-dimensional time-stepping finite element method (2-D TSFEM) is employed to evaluate and analyze the case study coupler. Finally, sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the influence of the design variables on the performance of the coupler.