Design Trade-Offs and Feasibility Assessment of a Novel One-Body, Laminated-Rotor Flywheel Switched Reluctance Machine

Roberto Rocca, Savvas Papadopoulos, Mohamed Rashed, George Prassinos, Fabio Giulii Capponi and Michael Galea
Additional contact information
Roberto Rocca: Electrical Systems Department, Fundación CIRCE (Centro de Investigación de Recursos y Consumos Energéticos — Research Centre for Energy Resources and Consumption), 50018 Zaragoza, Spain
Savvas Papadopoulos: School of Engineering and Built Environment (SEBE), Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh EH10 5DT, UK
Mohamed Rashed: Power Electronics, Machines and Control Group (PEMC), The University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
George Prassinos: Power Electronics, Machines and Control Group (PEMC), The University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
Fabio Giulii Capponi: Department of Astronautical, Electrical and Energy Engineering (DIAEE), Sapienza University of Rome, 00184 Rome, Italy
Michael Galea: Key Laboratory of More Electric Aircraft Technology of Zhejiang Province, The University of Nottingham, Ningbo 315100, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-19

Abstract: In a bid to respond to the challenges being faced in the installation of flywheel-based electric energy storage systems (EESSs) in customer-side facilities, namely high safety, high energy/power densities and low cost, research work towards the development of a novel, one-body, laminated-rotor flywheel, based on a switched reluctance machine (OBOLAR-Fly SR machine) is presented, where the laminated rotor provides both the energy storage and motor/generator functions. The one-body architecture improves compactness and robustness. Besides, the rotor’s laminated body ensures inherently high safety. From the design perspective, the rotor’s dual purpose causes the traditional electrical machines design aspects, such as power development, cooling, losses, torque ripple, etc., to clash with the typical requirements of a flywheel, namely in-vacuum operation and moment of inertia. This results in six main trade-offs to be addressed during the design process: rotor material, speed ratio, number of drive phases, split ratio, optimal vacuum level, and controller hysteresis band. A 60 kW, 2.2 kWh OBOLAR-Fly SR system is developed with a twofold objective: (1) provide an in-depth description of the six bespoke design trade-offs and give some useful guidelines to tackle them; (2) prove the OBOLAR-Fly concept and compare the prototype’s performance with the current state of the art flywheels. Preliminary experimental results prove the viability of the OBOLAR idea and show its competitiveness in terms of efficiency and power density. On the other hand, a gap in energy density to be filled in future research works is highlighted.

Keywords: customer-side installation; energy storage system; high-speed; integrated flywheel; interference fit; laminated rotor; machine design; one body flywheel; switched reluctance drive (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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