Research on Speed Regulation Performance of Self-excited Electromagnetic Eddy Current Couplings

Due to the complex structures of a permanent magnet eddy current coupling, this paper presented a novel structure of self-excited electromagnetic eddy current couplings, which combined the technology of excitation power generation and eddy current drive. The generating characteristics and the drive characteristics were studied on the self-excited electromagnetic eddy current couplings by establishing the finite element numerical model of the electromagnetic fields for excitation power generation and eddy current drive. The influences of rotational speed differences, conductor layers and air gap lengths on the driving torque were analyzed, then draw a conclusion that when the materials with high conductivity are used for the conductor layers, a larger torque at a low rotational speed differences may be obtained; when the thicknesses of copper layers increase from 1 mm to 9 mm, the driving torque increases first and then decreases, and the maximum of the driving torque is reached at thickness of 5 mm. The driving torque reduces along with the increments of the air gap lengths. © 2017, China Mechanical Engineering Magazine Office. All right reserved.