Optimal design of the rotor of air-core compulsator

Abstract

With the quick development of mobile railguns in recent years, the air-core compulsators are paid more and more attentions for its higher energy density and higher power density than capacitors. The air-core compulsator is a kinetic energy storage pulsed power source. For achieving higher energy density and power density, the air-core compulsator usually operates at very high speed. Therefore, the rotor core and rotor banding of air-core compulsator are made of composite materials, such as carbon or glass fiber epoxy resin with higher strength and lower mass density than commercial steels used in traditional generators. Due to the anisotropic characteristic of carbon or glass fiber epoxy resin materials, the structure of rotor core was optimized for achieving the maximum energy density of rotor. For preventing the composite core from radial delamination at high-speed rotating, a structure that is assembled by different composite rings is presented. This paper presented three compulsator rotors with the same inner and outer diameter, but the rotor-core components of the three rotors are different. By the stress evaluation of the three rotors at rest and high-speed rotating, the optimal structure is chosen in the term of energy density, safety and cost. The choice principal of component materials for hybrid composite core is presented. The effects on the composite rotor core of the inertial stress between the outer diameter and the rotor winding during assembly were analyzed.