DESIGN OF LINEAR GENERATOR

Linear Generator is one of the alternatives to the commonly used rotary
generator. For motion-based generator, the rotary type is widely used compared to
linear type because the momentum built up in a rotary motion is continuous. While
in linear motion, the momentum breaks at the end of the stroke. However, there are
some situations where linear generators can perform better than rotary generators
such as when the source of the motion itself is linear. If rotary type generator is to be
coupled to a linear motion, there will be a translation loss in the gearing mechanism.
Thus, the potential of Linear Generator must be further studied in order to extract
more output out of the available sources. This project is mainly about analysing the
known factors that affect the efficiency of a Linear Generator thus come up with the
best design for the generator. In general, there are many factors that need to be taken
into account in designing a Linear Generator. They can be grouped as Material,
Dimension and Components Configuration. The project will cover the study on the
Components Configuration on the efficiency of the generator. The Components
Configuration can be further broken into 3 smaller factors; Mover-Stator
Configuration, Magnet’s Configuration and Winding Configuration. Each of these
factors will be analyse in this project. For each sub-factors, a few designs has been
built and tested. The outputs (Voltage and Current) obtained from each design are
used to make comparison in order to get the best configuration for each category.
From the best design of each category, they will be combined to produce the best
design for the Linear Generator.