1710 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO.

4, APRIL 2014
Electromagnetic-Thermal Design Optimization of the
Brushless Doubly Fed Induction Generator
Hamed Gorginpour, Hashem Oraee, Senior Member, IEEE, and Richard A. McMahon
AbstractIn view of its special features, the brushless doubly
fed induction generator (BDFIG) shows high potentials to be
employed as a variable-speed drive or wind generator. However,
the machine suffers from low efciency and power factor and
also high level of noise and vibration due to spatial harmonics.
These harmonics arise mainly from rotor winding conguration,
slotting effects, and saturation. In this paper, analytical equations
are derived for spatial harmonics and their effects on leakage ux,
additional loss, noise, and vibration. Using the derived equations
and an electromagnetic-thermal model, a simple design procedure
is presented, while the design variables are selected based on
sensitivity analyses. A multiobjective optimization method using
an imperialist competitive algorithm as the solver is established
to maximize efciency, power factor, and power-to-weight ratio,
as well as to reduce rotor spatial harmonic distortion and volt-
age regulation simultaneously. Several constraints on dimensions,
magnetic ux densities, temperatures, vibration level, and con-
verter voltage and rating are imposed to ensure feasibility of the
designed machine. The results show a signicant improvement
in the objective function. Finally, the analytical results of the
optimized structure are validated using nite-element method and
are compared to the experimental results of the D180 frame size
prototype BDFIG.
Index TermsBrushless doubly fed induction generator
(BDFIG), design optimization, power-to-weight ratio, spatial
harmonics, wind generator.
NOMENCLATURE
[ [ Denotes the absolute value.
() Denotes the phase angle.
Magnetic permeability.
B Magnetic ux density.
f Frequency.
I Current.
Im Denotes imaginary part.
K
cs
/K
cr
Stator/rotor Carter factor.
L Number of series loops per nest.
l
fe
Stack length.
N
c
Number of conductors per coil.
N
l
Number of winding layers.
Manuscript received February 12, 2013; revised April 21, 2013; accepted
May 21, 2013. Date of publication June 11, 2013; date of current version
September 19, 2013.
H. Gorginpour and H. Oraee are with the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran 11365-8639, Iran (e-mail:
h_gorgin@ee.sharif.ir; oraee@sharif.edu).
R. A. McMahon is with the Department of Engineering, University of
Cambridge, CB3 0FA Cambridge, U.K., and also with Wind Technologies Ltd.,
CB4 0WS Cambridge, U.K. (e-mail: ram1@cam.ac.uk).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TIE.2013.2267705
n
m
Mechanical speed.
N
ss
/N
rs
Number of stator/rotor slots.
P Power/pole pairs.
P
r
Number of rotor nests.
Re Denotes real part.
s Slip.
S Apparent power.
X Reactance.
Z Impedance.
Convection heat transfer constant.
Spatial angle.

amb
Ambient temperature.
Conduction heat transfer constant.

cu
/
fe
Copper/iron electric conductivity.
Pitch length.
Angular frequency.
SUBSCRIPTS AND SUPERSCRIPTS
ins. Insulator.
max/min/av Maximum/minimum/average value.
nl/ No load/full load.
p(pw)/c(cw) Power/control winding.
ss/rs Stator slot/rotor slot.
rt/ry Rotor tooth/rotor yoke.
st/sy Stator tooth/stator yoke.
I. INTRODUCTION
I
N recent decades, electricity generation using renewable
energy sources, especially wind, has gained considerable
attention worldwide [1], [2]. Various generating systems have
been proposed for wind turbines to convert wind mechanical
power into electrical power [3]. Up to 70% of the installed wind
turbines incorporates doubly fed induction generator (DFIG)
and a fractionally rated power converter. Other schemes still
have technological and economic penalties such as high cost
of active materials, complexity of machine manufacturing and
control systems, and large and expensive converters, which
limit their spread in wind power plants [3]. Among these,
brushless DFIG (BDFIG) has attractive features to be the
next generation of wind generators. Having no brush and slip
rings, a robust structure, and lower operating and maintenance
costs and requiring a smaller mechanical gear box besides its
advantages in grid connection issues, such as better low-voltage
ride-through capability, are the benets of BDFIG over DFIG
[4][8]. The disadvantages of BDFIG are related to its design
since it has slightly larger dimensions and manufacturing cost
0278-0046 2013 IEEE
GORGINPOUR et al.: ELECTROMAGNETIC-THERMAL DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF BDFIG 1711
as well as lower efciency in comparison to a DFIG with
the same rating [9]. However, its promising feature warrants
further investigations on the design possibilities. It is therefore
necessary to optimize the machine structure in order to enhance
its performance, both technical and economic, against other
options.
Generally, optimization of an electrical machine is a multi-
objective problem with several variables and constraints. First,
the optimization variables, i.e., geometrical, electrical, and
magnetic parameters, are chosen based on the results of the
sensitivity analyses. In the following, the objective functions
(OFs) and constraints are formulated using these variables,
and nally, an optimization solver is employed to nd the
optimal values of the variables. The most crucial part of this
procedure is the OF formulation, which can be considered as a
combination of power loss, active mass weight or cost, volume,
efciency, cogging torque, noise, and vibration. Constraints are
imposed to the problem due to mechanical, electrical, mag-
netic, thermal, cost, volume, and manufacturing limitations.
Optimization algorithms can be either single- or multiobjective,
constrained or unconstrained, and nonlinear programming or
random search-based approaches.
A limited number of investigations on BDFIG design is
reported in literature. The relations of the machine rating and
performance characteristics based on dimensions are presented
in [9] using a simplied electric equivalent circuit (EEC; core
model) and the denitions of the equivalent electric and mag-
netic loadings. It is shown that the BDFIG suffers a reduced
rating of about 30% in comparison to comparable DFIG arising
from its magnetic and electric loadings. A design optimization
is studied in [10] using the derived equations in [9] to maximize
the electromagnetic torque by optimal division of the equivalent
electric and magnetic loadings between stator windings. The
rated produced torque of the optimized machine is increased to
78% of the induction machine (IM) with the same frame size.
In this paper, the energy conversion mechanism in BDFIG
is rst discussed. Then, an analytical electromagnetic-thermal
model based fully on design parameters is extracted by consid-
ering spatial harmonics and their effects. The OF which is a
combination of power-to-weight ratio, efciency, power factor,
rotor differential leakage inductance, and voltage regulation is
formulated, and the design algorithm is presented in the next
step. The results of an optimized BDFIG are veried using
2-D nite-element (FE) analyses and are compared to the
results of the D180 frame size prototype machine.
II. ELECTROMAGNETIC-THERMAL MODEL OF BDFIG
A. Generating Operation
BDFIG has two stator windings with different pole pair
numbers to avoid direct magnetic coupling, known as the
power winding (PW) and the control winding (CW). PW is
connected to the grid, and CW is excited via a partially rated
bidirectional converter, which allows the machine to operate
synchronously in a limited range of shaft rotational speeds.
The rotor is traditionally designed as nested loop (Fig. 1) [11],
which couples the stator magnetic elds indirectly. The process,
Fig. 1. Nested-loop rotor of a D180 frame size BDFIG [11].
Fig. 2. Wind turbine system based on BDFIG.
which is called cross coupling, is studied in several references
such as [12]. The number of rotor nests or poles should be
equal to the summation of stator winding pole pair numbers
to provide indirect coupling between PW and CW magnetic
elds [9]. A wind turbine system based on BDFIG is shown
in Fig. 2.
Turbine speed (815 r/min) is increased via gearbox to a
speed within the range of 25% of the natural speed (n
n
=
60f
p
/P
r
). The power converter regulates the CW frequency
(f
c
) at P
r
n
m
/60f
p
. The rotor magnetic eld due to CW
rotational eld comprises many spatial harmonics and two fun-
damental components having P
p
and P
c
pole pairs rotating in
backward and forward directions, respectively. Rotor quantities
alternate in slip frequency of f
c
P
c
n
m
/60. Hence, the rotor
eld component of P
p
pole pairs has the frequency of f
p
from
the PW point of view. The PW-induced voltage due to this
rotating eld is proportional to the eld magnitude and thus
to the CW voltage magnitude. Therefore, CW plays the role
of the eld winding in the case of a conventional synchronous
generator. A braking torque is developed because of the inter-
action between PW eld due to load currents and the rotor eld
of P
p
pole pairs. One of the rotor harmonic elds in response
to the PW eld has P
c
pole pairs and forward direction. The
CW-induced voltage due to this component reduces the CW
back electromotive force, and thus, the converter current is
increased. Hence, the decrement of the rotational speed and the
increment of the converter power are the effects of increasing
the electrical load. As mentioned previously, the rotor eld
comprises many undesired spatial harmonics, which impairs the
effective performance by increasing the power loss, tempera-
tures, and vibration level. The air-gap ux density distribution
of D180 prototype BDFIG under specied operating conditions
is plotted in Fig. 3(a), and the spatial harmonic spectrum is
shown in Fig. 3(b). It is obvious that the teeth saturation and
slotting effects increase the spatial harmonics distortion. Hence,
these harmonics should be considered in design studies.
Improving rotor conguration from spatial harmonics point
of view is investigated in [13], and a novel scheme comprising
series loops is proposed. The new conguration has some
1712 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
Fig. 3. (a) Air-gap magnetic eld distribution of the nested-loop rotor of
Fig. 1 and (b) its spatial harmonics spectrum (P
p
= 2, P
c
= 4, and n
m
=
600 r/min).
Fig. 4. EEC of BDFIM [11].
interesting advantages, including lower rotor leakage ux,
equal current magnitude in rotor bars, more uniform ux den-
sity distribution in rotor teeth, and considerably lower rotor hot-
spot temperature. Hence, the series loop conguration is used
in this study instead of nested loop.
B. EEC Model
The EEC is depicted in Fig. 4. The modied procedure of
calculating EEC parameters when the rotor carries series loop
conguration is presented in [13].
Spatial harmonics are considered in calculation of stator
and rotor leakage inductances because of using the winding
function approach in the calculation algorithm. Moreover, the
following points should be taken into account.
1) For low-power designs, a uni-stack stator with no axial
duct is used, and both stator and rotor slots have a
semiclosed shape. Also, parallel teeth shape is chosen in
order to have a higher ll factor in stator slots and limited
ux densities in rotor teeth. Fig. 5 indicates some of the
geometrical dimensions of the BDFIG structure.
Fig. 5. Structure of BDFIG.
TABLE I
RELATIONS OF STATOR SLOT AND END-WINDING LEAKAGE
INDUCTANCES
The required relations for calculating slot and end-
winding leakage inductances are stated in Table I.
2) The rotor winding often has deep bars in order to decrease
the rotor loop resistances. Hence, it is necessary to con-
sider the effects of current displacement on the reduction
of the bar leakage inductance and increment of the bar
resistance. The correction factors, as stated in (1) and
(2), modify the slot leakage inductance and slot resistance
terms, respectively [14]
() =
sinh(2) + sin(2)
cosh(2) cos(2)
(1)
() =
3
2
sinh(2) sin(2)
cosh(2) cos(2)
(2)
where is the penetration depth and its relation is [14]
= H
rs
_

cu
f
r
. (3)
GORGINPOUR et al.: ELECTROMAGNETIC-THERMAL DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF BDFIG 1713
3) The values of the stator winding magnetizing inductances
are evaluated by assuming innite magnetic permeability
for stator and rotor cores. Hence, the magnetizing current
has much lower magnitude than its actual value. This
leads to underestimation of the power converter rating as
the machine is designed to have unity power factor in PW,
while all reactive power including magnetizing power is
handled by CW. Therefore, a correction factor as the ratio
of air-gap magnetomotive force (MMF) drop to the total
MMF drop in the ux route of the related winding should
be considered [14].
C. Flux Density Distributions
The MMF distribution of a three-phase and P pole pair
winding can be expressed as follows:

s
(t, ) =
3I
max
N
sw

_
_
_

h=P(6n+1)
1
h
k
wh
sin(t h)
+

h=P(6n1)
1
h
k
wh
sin(t +h)
_
_
_
, n = 0, 1, 2, . . . (4)
where I
max
is the current amplitude, N
sw
is the number of
winding turns per phase, and k
wh
is the winding factor of the
hth spatial harmonic order.
The MMF of the nested-loop rotor can be expressed as

r
(t,
r
) =
P
r

m=1
I
m,max

h=nP
r
+P
c
1
h
sin
_
h

m
2
_
sin
(
r
t +h
r
n(P
r
1))
+

h=nP
r
+P
p
1
h
sin
_
h

m
2
_
sin
(
r
t h
r
+n(P
r
1))
_
(5)
where I
m,max
is the magnitude of the current owing in the
mth loop with
m
span angle.
As can be seen in Fig. 3, in addition to P
p
and P
c
pole pair
components, low-order spatial harmonics with considerable
magnitudes are present in the rotor magnetic eld. Undesired
harmonics will increase when the rotor teeth are magnetically
saturated. It can be shown that saturation causes harmonics of
nP
r
3P
p
and nP
r
3P
c
orders to be superimposed on the
air-gap magnetic eld [12].
Examinations show that an appropriate description of mag-
netic eld distribution on a stator slot pitch is [15]
B()=
_
_
1
s

s
cos
_
D
ag
1.6w
sso

__
B
max
[[
0.8w
sso
D
ag
B
max
0.8w
sso
D
ag
[[

N
ss
(6)
where

s
=
(1 u)
2
2(1 +u
2
)
, u =
w
sso
2g
+ 1 +
_
w
sso
2g
_
2
. (7)
The distribution of air-gap conductance 1/g() can be ob-
tained using (6) as [15]
G
ag
(,
r
)
1
gk
cs
k
cr
+
a
1
k
cr
cos(N
ss
) +
a
2
k
cr
cos(2N
ss
)
+
b
1
k
cs
cos (N
rs
(
r
))
+
b
2
k
cs
cos (2N
rs
(
r
)) +
a
1
b
1
2
g
[cos ((N
ss
+N
rs
) N
rs

r
)
+cos ((N
ss
N
rs
) +N
rs

r
)] (8)
where k
cs
and k
cr
are stator and rotor Carters factors, respec-
tively. These factors are calculated using (9) by substituting
appropriate parameters of stator and rotor. a
n
and b
n
are related
to stator and rotor conductance distributions, respectively, and
can be obtained using Fourier series calculations of (6). The
general forms of a
n
and b
n
coefcients are stated in (10).
Hence, the air-gap conductance consists of spatial harmonics
of c
1
N
rs
, c
2
N
ss
, and c
3
N
ss
c
4
N
sr
orders superimposed on
the large average value of 1/(gk
cs
k
cr
), where c
14
= 1, 2, . . .
k
cs(cr)
=

ss(rs)

ss(rs)
1.6
s(r)
w
sso(rso)
(9)
a
n
=

s
g
F
n
(w
sso
/
ss
), b
n
=

r
g
F
n
(w
rso
/
rs
)
F
n
(x) =
4
n
sin(1.6nx)
_
0.5 +
(nx)
2
0.78 2(nx)
2
_
. (10)
The air-gap distributions of stator and rotor magnetic elds are
evaluated by multiplying their MMF distributions by
0
G
ag
.
The ux densities predicted using the presented relations
are slightly larger than the FE results because of neglecting
saturation. Stator and rotor teeth saturation leads to at-topped
ux density distribution in air-gap. The physical air-gap length
is modied in order to consider teeth saturation. The correction
factor for the hth harmonic is (11) [15]. The factor is a function
of the magnetic permeability of the stator and rotor teeth,
i.e., (
fe
)
s
and (
fe
)
r
, respectively. Hence, an iterative process
using the -B curve is necessary for nding the correction
factor
k
gh
= 1 +
_
sin(h/N
ss
)
h/N
ss

ss

ss
w
sst
h
ss1
+h
ss2
(
fe
)
s
+
sin(h/N
rs
)
h/N
rs

rs

rs
w
rst
h
rs
(
fe
)
r
_

0
0.92g
. (11)
1714 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
Fig. 6. Equivalent thermal network of a radial sector of BDFIG.
D. Lumped Parameter Thermal Model
The design of an electrical machine is a combined elec-
tromagnetic and thermal problem. Optimal design is reached
by maximizing the active mass utilization while limiting the
temperature to its maximum allowed value. The maximum tem-
perature rise of an industrial machine with insulation class F,
in accordance to IEC 60034-1, is 80 K (thermal class B)
considering ambient temperature of 40

C and hot-spot tem-
perature rise of 10 K. There are valuable design and manufac-
turing experiences on IM (cage or wound rotor) providing the
designers with the optimal boundaries of average air-gap ux
density and stator and rotor current densities. Choosing ux
and current densities in these ranges guarantees optimal design
with no excessive temperature rise. However, such information
is not available in the case of BDFIG. In addition, the rotor
core loss, in contrast to conventional IM, is considerable, and
the total iron and additional losses are higher than IM. Hence,
an accurate thermal model has to be developed in conjunction
with the electromagnetic model. The actual distributions of the
power losses should be considered in this model, while the
required data for calculating the network elements are design
parameters.
The equivalent thermal network of a radial sector of one
stator slot span angle (2/N
ss
) is depicted in Fig. 6. P
fe,s(r)
denotes the iron loss dissipated in a stator (rotor) radial sector,
and P
cu,slot
and P
cu,ew
are the resistive losses occurring in
slot and overhang regions, respectively. The denitions of the
thermal resistances are given in Table II. Note that all of the
rotor thermal resistances except R
r1
should be modied by
N
ss
/N
rs
factor.
TABLE II
DEFINITION OF THERMAL RESISTANCES IN FIG. 6
TABLE III
SOME PARAMETERS AND RELATIONS USED IN CALCULATION OF
THERMAL RESISTANCES
The additional iron losses due to surface losses of spatial
harmonics and ux pulsation are superimposed to the loss
sources of stator and rotor cores.
Examinations show that the Taylor number value for conven-
tional ratings of BDFIGs is much lower than the critical value
of 1740. Hence, the ow mode in the air-gap region is laminar,
and the air-gap thermal resistance can be calculated as [16]
R
ag
=
gN
ss

air
D
ag
l
fe
. (12)
The external-frame area in calculation of R
s0
is considered to
be three times wider because of the existence of ns. However,
the total surface of the external frame should be multiplied by
the overall surface efciency (
0
) which indicates the ther-
mal performance of nned surface and is a function of n
dimensions, thermal conductivity of frame, and convection heat
transfer coefcient of cooling air [17].
0
and some of the
parameters with considerable effects and high uncertainty in
their related values are given in Table III.
The thermal resistances can be evaluated based on dimen-
sions and thermal constants by utilizing simple relations pre-
sented in [16] and [18] for IMs of the TEFC design.
GORGINPOUR et al.: ELECTROMAGNETIC-THERMAL DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF BDFIG 1715
Friction loss of bearings which increases the temperature in
the bearing region can be expressed as [14]
P
fric.
= 0.0005n
m
D
ri
M
rotor
(13)
where M
rotor
is the rotor mass.
Also, windage loss due to the friction between cooling air
and surfaces is expressed as follows [14]:
P
windage
= 0.0042D
3
ro

2
n
2
m
l
fe
. (14)
III. PERFORMANCE CALCULATION
In this section, analytical equations are derived in order
to calculate electromagnetic torque, efciency, power factor,
voltage regulation, and rotor differential leakage inductance.
For higher accuracy, the effects of all loss components are
considered in calculation of efciency. As the rotational speed
is allowed to vary in the range of 0.25n
n
, there is a main
concern on the value of rotor speed in the calculations. To
address this, investigations on generating performance reveal
that the minimum torque is developed at the lower band of the
speed range. In addition, copper and core losses increase by
deviating from the natural speed. Hence, satisfaction of design
criteria at minimum speed warrants the desired performance
throughout the speed range.
Total copper loss is the summation of PW, CW, and rotor
winding losses
P
cu
= 3R
pw
I
2
pw
+ 3R
cw
I
2
cw
+P
r
R
r
I
2
r
. (15)
The core loss is evaluated using modied Steinmetz equation
(MSE) as [19]
P
fe
= k
k
f
1
eq
B

max
f +k
e
f
2
B
2
max
(16)
where k
h
, k
e
, , and are MSE constants determined for each
steel type via experiments and
f
eq
=
2
(B
max
B
min
)
2

2
1/f
_
o
_
dB
dt
_
2
dt. (17)
Using the MSE approach makes it possible to handle the
complex situation occurring for ux density distributions, i.e.,
magnetic elds of different frequencies, and also eliminates the
third term of iron loss, i.e., excess eddy current loss.
As mentioned previously, the additional losses due to spatial
harmonics are more pronounced in BDFIG compared to IM.
Stator teeth surface and pulsation losses are computed using
(18) and (19), respectively. These components can be expressed
for rotor teeth by appropriate substitutions in (18)(21) [14]
P
surf.,s
=0.08N
ss
(
ss
w
ss1
)l
fe
_

ss
4
_
2
_

K
cr
B
ag,av
_
2

_
N
rs
n
m
60
_
1.5

fe
/
st,av
(18)
P
pul.,s
=1.8k
e
B
2
st,av
_
N
rs
n
m
/60
50
_
2
M
st
(19)
where
=0.5
_
_
1
2/h
_
1 + (2/h)
2
_
_
h =
w
ss1
g
(20)
B
st,av
=
B
st,av
K
cr

2
sin (N
ss
/N
rs
)
N
ss
/N
rs
. (21)
The efciency of the energy conversion process is dened as
follows:
=
P
out
P
in
(22)
where
P
in
=T
el
(1 s
max
)n
n
/30 + 3V
cw
I
cw
(P.F.
cw
) (23)
P
out
=P
in
P
cu
P
fe
P
add.
P
fric.
P
windage
. (24)
The electromagnetic torque (T
el
) is as follows [9] (Fig. 4):
T
el
=
3
2f
p
[Z
r
[
[E
pw
[[E
cw
[
_
P
2
p
+P
2
c
2P
p
P
c
cos(2Z
r
)
sin
_
E
pw
E
cw
tan
1
(P
p
P
c
) cos(Z
r
)
(P
p
+P
c
) sin(Z
r
)
_
.
(25)
The power factor from CW point of view is
P.F.
cw
= cos
_
tan
1
ImZ
cw
in

Re Z
cw
in

_
(26)
where
Z
cw
in
=
s
c
s
p
R
//
c
+jX
//
c
+
jX
//
mc
(Z
r
+jX
mp
|(R
1
+jX
1
+Z
load
))
Z
r
+jX
//
mc
+jX
mp
|(R
1
+jX
1
+Z
load
)
(27)
where Z
load
is the full-load impedance of the unity power
factor.
Furthermore, the rotor differential leakage inductance for the
mth loop with
m
span pitch length which measures the spatial
harmonic distortion can be expressed as
D
ri
l
fe

0
P
2
r
g

h
(sin (h
m
/D
ri
) /h)
2
. (28)
The terminal voltage is developed from PW back EMF
(E
pw
) after some internal drops. The magnitude of E
pw
is in-
creased by increasing the load current in order to have constant
terminal voltage. Under extreme operational conditions, the
CW voltage and rating should not exceed their limits, i.e., V
ter
and 30%S
pw
, respectively. An important operational parameter
which indicates the internal voltage drop of the generator is
voltage regulation (VR). VR is dened as (29) for full load
condition
V R =
V
ter,nl
V
ter
V
ter,nl

V
cw
=cst.
(29)
1716 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
As previously stated, higher levels of noise and vibration are
reported in BDFIGs compared to IMs. Hence, it is necessary to
take into account the magnetic radial forces and the resulting
mechanical vibration in the design stage.
The natural frequency of mth vibration mode (m 2) is [15]
F
m2
=
h
sy
(D
so
h
sy
)
2

E
s
3k
fe
..
fe
m(m
2
1)

1 +m
2
[Hz] (30)
where E
s
, i.e., module of elasticity, is equal to 1.521
10
11
N/m
2
for laminated magnetic steels. Core stacking factor
(k
fe
) and mass density (
fe
) are typically 0.95 and 7800 kg/m
3
,
respectively. is dened as the increment factor of stator mass
due to windings and teeth [15].
Only the frequencies of low-order magnetic forces (m 6)
are considered in the vibration analysis. The frequency of the
lowest order harmonic (N
ss
N
rs
P
r
) can be concluded as
(N
rs
+P
r
)n
m
/60. (31)
IV. DESIGN PROCEDURE
In this paper, the optimization goals are chosen as maximiz-
ing the power-to-weight ratio, efciency, and power factor as
well as minimizing VR and rotor differential leakage induc-
tance. Therefore, the OF is dened as
OF(x) =
(P
out
/weight)
k
1

k
2
(P.F.
cw
)
k
3
(VR)
k
4
_
L
r
leak,di
_
k
5
(32)
where x is the optimization variable vector and k
i
(i = 1 . . . 5)
can be set equal to 0 or 1.
Different design variables affect the machine performance
in various ways. The dimensions and specications of D180
frame size prototype BDFIG are employed to investigate the
effects of design variables. The prototype machine has a natural
speed of 500 r/min and two and four pole pairs on its PW and
CW, respectively. The machine is manufactured by changing
the winding arrangements of a 22-kW four-pole industrial
IM [11].
The implemented model in MATLAB software makes it
possible to investigate the effects of variation of each parameter
on the performance characteristics. The results are important to
select the design variables.
In Fig. 7, the dependence of electromagnetic torque on some
parameters is presented while keeping the other parameters
constant. As expected, the increments of machine diameter,
axial length, PW and CW turns, and current magnitudes as well
as the decrement of air-gap length increase the produced torque.
However, the rotor slot pitch angle affects the rotor leakage
inductance, and the CW phase angle affects the air-gap ux
density distribution in more complex behaviors. Also, there
is an optimum value for the number of loops per rotor series
group. The rotor impedance and turn ratios are functions of the
number of loops.
Fig. 8 shows the effects of air-gap diameter, axial length, and
rotor and stator slot heights on the system efciency. Stator
Fig. 7. Electromagnetic torque versus some design variables.
Fig. 8. Efciency versus some design variables.
Fig. 9. Variations of PW-induced voltage, rotor leakage inductance, CW
power factor, and output power versus design variables.
winding resistances and thus copper loss are subjected to de-
crease by increasing the stator slot height. However, increasing
the rotor slot height causes decrement of rotor copper loss and
increment of rotor leakage inductance simultaneously.
Fig. 9 reveals the dependences of terminal voltage on CW
phase angle, rotor leakage inductance on number of rotor loops,
GORGINPOUR et al.: ELECTROMAGNETIC-THERMAL DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF BDFIG 1717
TABLE IV
DESIGN VARIABLES
CWinput impedance on stack length, and output power on rotor
slot pitch angle.
The design variables are selected based on the performed
sensitivity investigations and by considering all the effective
parameters (Table IV).
The variation range of each variable is wide to ensure reach-
ing the global optimum point. Before presenting the design
procedure, it is necessary to determine other parameters which
are not considered as design variables. Note that the aim of
this paper is to address the design of low-power BDFIGs.
1) The optimum pole pair numbers for PW and CW are 2 and 4,
respectively [9]. The stator is assumed to have 48 slots, which
means 4 and 2 slots/pole/phase for PW and CW, respectively.
2) The PW is considered having 2 layers with 10/12 short
pitching in order to reduce the spatial harmonics. 3) To have
a higher slot ll factor, the CW is considered as one layer and
full pitch. 4) Because of the small changes in slot and winding
insulation thicknesses for below 1 kV, both stator windings are
connected in delta () arrangement. This causes the reduction
of phase currents (in comparison to star (Y) connection) and
thus reduces loss and temperature rises. 5) Also, the CW and
PW terminal voltages are set equal to eliminate the matching
transformer. 6) The stator slot ll factor (0.62) is divided
between the coils of two windings. Hence, the cross-sectional
areas of the winding conductors can be calculated based on the
coil turns and rated currents.
The owchart of the optimization procedure is depicted in
Fig. 10.
The imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) is effectively
employed as the numerical solver. ICA has better stability
and convergence rate in comparison to the other optimization
algorithms [21]. The concepts of ICA are summarized in the
next section.
V. ICA
ICA is a new optimization algorithm, which is based on
social and political evolution of humanity. The algorithm, sim-
ilar to other evolutionary optimization methods, starts with a
population. Each population in ICA is called a country. The
Fig. 10. Flowchart of the BDFIG design procedure [S
y
is the yield strength
(190 MPa for stainless steel at 50

C), n 1 is the safety factor, and c
i
is set to 0.1 times the maximum or minimum bound of c
i
th constraints
(0.1c
i,max \ min
)].
cost of a country is found by evaluating the cost function f at
the variable positions. The initial population size is generated
to start the optimization. Specied number of this population is
considered as imperialists and the remaining as colonies, each
of which belongs to an empire.
Imperialist countries start to improve their countries. The
total power of an imperialist, which is the counterpart of the
tness value in genetic algorithm, is dened as the summation
of the imperialist country and a percent of dominated country
powers, i.e.,
T.C.
n
= Cost(imperialist
n
)
+mean Cost(colonies of empire
n
) . (33)
All empires try to take possession of colonies of other em-
pires and control them. This imperialist competition gradually
brings about a decrease in the power of weaker empires and
an increase in the power of more powerful ones. The ICA
owchart is depicted in Fig. 11.
1718 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
Fig. 11. ICA owchart.
TABLE V
ICA PARAMETER SETTINGS
TABLE VI
SPECIFICATIONS OF LAMINATED CORE (M800-65A)
After a while, all the empires except the most powerful one
will collapse, and all the colonies will be under the control of
the unique empire. At this time, ICA reaches the optimal point
and stops.
VI. OPTIMIZATION RESULTS
The ICA parameter settings used in the optimization problem
are listed in Table V. The specications of electric steel used in
stator and rotor core are given in Table VI.
The optimization is carried out for different OFs using (32).
In the rst step, K
12
= 1, and K
35
= 0, which means that
TABLE VII
PROTOTYPE AND OPTIMIZED MACHINE SPECIFICATIONS
only the efciency and power-to-weight ratio are optimized,
and then, all of the considered functions are optimized simul-
taneously by setting K
15
= 1. The optimal design values as
well as the prototype machine values are stated in Table VII.
The calculations are carried out for a constant rotational speed
of 375 r/min. The intervals of design variables are set broad
in order to create a large searching domain. High convergence
rate and low computational time are achieved by using ICA.
The visual descriptions of the prototype and optimum designs
are provided in Fig. 12.
Optimized structures have signicantly better OF values than
the prototype. In comparison, an optimal BDFIG has a higher
D
ag
/l
fe
ratio than conventional IMs. This is due to the fact
that BDFIG is inherently a high-pole-number machine. In this
way, more spaces are available for stator and rotor windings by
increasing the air-gap diameter. Hence, lower resistances and
higher magnetizing inductances for stator windings and better
formation of rotor loops with lower impedance are achieved.
The main goal of optimization, i.e., power-to-weight ratio,
is improved considerably. One of the important reasons, in
addition to increasing D
ag
, is the use of the series loop congu-
ration instead of the nested-loop scheme, which results in equal
current magnitude in all of the rotor bars and more uniform
distribution of rotor ux density. Furthermore, elimination of
locally saturated hot spots of the rotor teeth allows an increase
in the average air-gap ux density.
The value of the power-to-weight ratio of the optimized
BDFIG is now comparable to that for standard IMs with a
GORGINPOUR et al.: ELECTROMAGNETIC-THERMAL DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF BDFIG 1719
Fig. 12. Two-dimensional cross section of the (a) prototype machine and
optimum designed machines by setting (b) K
12
= 1, K
35
= 0, and
(c) K
15
= 1 (vertical line indicated the axial length).
synchronous speed of 500 r/min (120180 W/kg at this range
of powers). It should be noted that the rating is increased by
increasing the rotational speed. This is due to the improvement
of the heat transfer capability and the reduction of the converter
absorbing power as well as injection of power to the grid
at supernatural speeds. The key limitations against increasing
power to weight are maximum boundaries of ux densities and
temperature rise. Higher temperatures are reported in BDFIGs
than IMs since BDFIG has lower rotational speeds and thus
lower cooling air speeds, higher rotor power loss due to large
slip values, and higher stator power loss due to dedicated slot
space to coils of two windings and existence of two rotating
ux waveforms in the core. In addition, air-gap ux density
consists of two rotating ux density waveforms of different
frequencies and pole numbers. This causes a larger difference
between maximum and average values of air-gap ux density
in comparison to IMs. Hence, there is local saturation in low
average air-gap ux densities in the case of BDFIGs. This
implies that the maximum boundaries of ux densities can be
chosen slightly higher.
The machine rating can be improved by using external cool-
ing system, choosing higher insulation class and electric steels
of higher grades (according to EN 10106). These increase the
initial cost and are suitable for large machines.
VII. FE ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
The effectiveness of the design mainly depends on the va-
lidity of the developed model. To validate the model and to
conrm the results of the optimization, 2-D FEM is employed.
The optimal design by setting K
15
= 1 is analyzed using a
commercial software (Maxwell 12.0). Two-dimensional pat-
terns of ux density and ux lines in the cross section of the
Fig. 13. Two-dimensional patterns of (a) ux density and (b) ux lines in
optimized BDFIG.
TABLE VIII
CALCULATION AND FEM RESULTS
machine are shown in Fig. 13. The maximum ux densities in
different parts of the machine are well limited to the specied
bounds. As evident, the ux line pattern is completely different
from the pattern occurring in IMs.
The analytical and FE results are presented in Table VIII. The
overall efciency in FE analysis is greater than the calculated
value because of the inaccuracies in formulation of core loss in
FE software. There is a good agreement between the values of
other parameters, which conrms the validity of the modeling
approach.
1720 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 61, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
Fig. 14. Experimental test rig.
Fig. 15. PW-induced voltage versus rotor speed (CW is excited via a three-
phase 240-Vrms 50-Hz voltage source, and PW is open circuited).
Also, a study has been conducted to evaluate the performance
of the optimized machine. The experimental setup is shown in
Fig. 14. A dc machine equipped with an ABB DCS800 drive
system is mechanically coupled with the D-180 BDFIG as the
prime mover. A Magtrol TMB312 torque transducer and an
incremental encoder with 10 000 pulses per revolution are used
to measure torque and shaft rotational speed, respectively. The
voltage and current of each stator phase are measured using
LEM LV 25-p and LEM LTA 100-p transducers, respectively.
The CWis excited via a three-phase 240-Vrms 50-Hz voltage
source, and the induced voltages in open-circuited PW are
measured. Fig. 15 shows the measured voltages versus rotor
speed for the prototype machine and calculated ones for the
optimized machine of Fig. 12(c)(K
15
= 1). As can be seen,
the optimized machine has a signicantly higher ability to
create cross coupling between stator windings. It should be
noted that the low values of the induced voltage magnitude are
because of high CW frequency (f
c,max
= 0.3f
p
).
VIII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an affective, practical, and simple design pro-
cedure based on the electromagnetic-thermal models has been
presented for BDFIG. Magnetic saturation, current displace-
ment, spatial harmonics, vibration, and manufacturing limita-
tions have been considered in the procedure. A multiobjective
optimization using ICA has been developed to maximize the
power-to-weight ratio, efciency, and power factor and simul-
taneously to minimize the rotor leakage inductance and voltage
regulation. The results show that the objectives, particularly
power-to-weight ratio, can be signicantly improved by appro-
priate selection of the machine parameters. A 2-D FEM and
experiments have been carried out to conrm the precision of
the derived models and equations, and the effectiveness of the
optimization method.
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GORGINPOUR et al.: ELECTROMAGNETIC-THERMAL DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF BDFIG 1721
Hamed Gorginpour was born in Bushehr, Iran,
in 1985. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical
engineering from Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran, in
2007 and the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering
from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran,
in 2009, where he is currently working toward the
Ph.D. degree.
His research interests include electrical machine
design and modeling, nite-element analysis, and
power electronics and drives.
Hashem Oraee (SM98) received the B.Eng. degree
in electrical and electronic engineering (rst class
honors) from the University of Wales, Cardiff, U.K.,
in 1980 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical machines
from the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K.,
in 1984.
He is currently a Professor of electrical engineer-
ing with Sharif University of Technology, Tehran,
Iran. His research interests include electrical energy
conversion and power quality. He is also active in
commercialization of brushless doubly fed induction
generators in wind generation industry.
Richard A. McMahon received the B.A. degree
in electrical sciences and the Ph.D. degree from
Cambridge University, Cambridge, U.K., in 1976
and 1980, respectively.
Following his postdoctoral work on semiconduc-
tor device processing, he was appointed as Uni-
versity Lecturer in electrical engineering with the
Department of Engineering, Cambridge University,
in 1989 and became a Senior Lecturer in 2000. His
research interests include electrical machines and
power electronics, particularly for wind and wave
power systems.