Electric Machine Design for Wave Energy Converters

Direct Drive Wave Energy has a unique set of requirements for an ideal power take off. The slow speed reciprocating nature of many primary movers leads designers to use either intermediate mechanical systems or force dense machine types. There is a play off between electrical machine capital cost, mass, efficiency, force ripple and power factor. This paper presents the development of a case study wave energy device and uses it as the basis to assess a number of machine topologies for use as the direct drive power take off. The aim is that it can be used to aid future electrical machine design studies for other devices.