Rosales P., Cerezo J., Montero G., Lambert A., 2013, Comparative Assessment of a Horizontal Small Wind Turbine with Ball and Magnetic Bearings on the Starting, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 34, 55-60.
This article describes a mathematical model of a horizontal wind turbine of 500 W with a NACA 2418 airfoil type during the start-up condition for two proposed systems. The first one considers a wind turbine system where the friction moment is given by ball bearings. The second one proposes the replacement of the ball bearings by magnetic bearings called maglev wind turbine. The latter is a technology based on electromagnetic field to levitate a shaft. The magnetic bearing has the features of non-mechanical contact, non-mechanical friction, minimizing the damping in the wind turbine. The results under a wind speed of 8 m/s show that there is an increase in power by 7.2 % generated by a wind turbine with magnetic bearings, besides under a condition of 4 m/s the start-run time is 8.96 s quicker for the maglev wind turbine. Finally, it also confirms that the maglev wind turbine can operate with a speed similar at 3 m/s.
