Effects of Axial Flux Magnetic Gear Misalignment

Magnetic gears have recently received significant interest as a potential replacement for mechanical gears. Some papers have proposed that magnetic gears may be more tolerant to misalignment than their mechanical counterparts. This paper describes a parametric finite element analysis (FEA) study of the effects of misalignment in an axial flux magnetic gear (AFMG). A base design is selected and important parameters, including gear ratio, pole count, and outer radius, are varied to illustrate the effect of misalignment on different designs using simulation results. The torque signature of the gear tends to be more sensitive to misalignment on the high pole count rotor than on the low pole count rotor, and increasing the pole counts makes the gear more sensitive to misalignment. However, other parameters, such as magnet thicknesses, have much smaller impacts on the gear’s sensitivity to misalignment. Experimental results confirm the simulated trends for the slip torque.