The effect of power converter on the design of a Linear Alternator for use with a Joule Cycle-Free Piston Engine

Jalal, AS; Baker, NJ; Wu, D

doi:10.1109/IEMDC.2017.8002218

The effect of power converter on the design of a Linear Alternator for use with a Joule Cycle-Free Piston Engine

Lookup NU author(s): Aslan Jalal, Dr Nick Baker ORCiD, Di Wu

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This is the authors' accepted manuscript of a conference proceedings (inc. abstract) that has been published in its final definitive form by IEEE, 2017.

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Abstract

This paper describes the effect of alternative power conversion techniques on the performance of a Linear Alternator driven by a Joule Cycle-Free Piston Engine for electrical power generation. The design of a tubular Longitudinal Flux machine with axial magnets is performed using 2-D axisymmetric FEA modelling with transient solver to extract the rated power for three power conversion scenarios: Resistive Loading, Grid Interface, and Unity Power Factor Controlled Converter. The design study is carried out for a specific engine operating force and velocity, taking into consideration geometrical constraints for a compact system. Results are presented and discussed emphasizing the effect of the power conversion method on the idealized resultant machine physical and performance parameters.