Investigation into the performance characteristics of an interior permanent magnet generator including saturation effects

The availability of high-energy permanent magnet materials has brought about renewed interest in the use of permanent magnets to provide field excitation in electric generators for use in industrial and utility applications. This paper sets forth the analysis and computer simulation of such an interior permanent magnet generator feeding an impedance load, a rectifier load and a rectifier-PWM inverter connected to an impedance load. The analysis accounts for the changing saturation and armature reaction dependent axes inductances and magnet flux linkage. Experimental results from a 2 HP interior permanent magnet generator system corroborate the analysis and computer simulations