doi:10.3390/en11113219engGarcía Gracia, MiguelJiménez Romero, ÁngelHerrero Ciudad, JorgeMartín Arroyo, SusanaCogging torque reduction based on a new pre-slot technique for a small wind generatorART-2018-109276Cogging torque is a pulsating, parasitic, and undesired torque ripple intrinsic of the design of a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG), which should be minimized due to its adverse effects: vibration and noise. In addition, as aerodynamic power is low during start-up at low wind speeds in small wind energy systems, the cogging torque must be as low as possible to achieve a low cut-in speed. A novel mitigation technique using compound pre-slotting, based on a combination of magnetic and non-magnetic materials, is investigated. The finite element technique is used to calculate the cogging torque of a real PMSG design for a small wind turbine, with and without using compound pre-slotting. The results show that cogging torque can be reduced by a factor of 48% with this technique, while avoiding the main drawback of the conventional closed slot technique: the reduction of induced voltage due to leakage flux between stator teeth. Furthermore, through a combination of pre-slotting and other cogging torque optimization techniques, cogging torque can be reduced by 84% for a given design.2018http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/7608910.3390/en11113219http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/76089oai:zaguan.unizar.es:76089info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/RTC-2016-5234-3Energies 11, 11 (2018), 3219 [15 pp.]byhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess