Linear switched reluctance motor (LSRM) drives are investigated and proved as an alternative actuator for vertical linear transportation applications such as a linear elevator. A one-tenth scaled prototype elevator focused on a home elevator with LSRMs is designed and extensive experimental correlation is presented for the first time. The proposed LSRM has twin stators and a set of translator poles without back-iron. The translators are placed between the two stators. The design procedures and features of the LSRM and the prototype elevator are described. The designed LSRM is validated through a finite element analysis (FEA) and experimental measurements. Furthermore, a control strategy for the prototype elevator is introduced consisting of four control loops, viz., current, force, velocity, and position feedback control loops. For force control, a novel force distribution function (FDF) is proposed and compared with conventional FDFs. A trapezoidal velocity profile is introduced to control vertical travel position smoothly during the elevator's ascent, descent, and halt operations. Conventional proportional plus integral (PI) controller is used for the current and velocity control loops and their designs are described. The proposed control strategy is dynamically simulated and experimentally correlated. Analytical and experimental results of this research prove that LSRMs are one of the strong candidates for ropeless linear elevator applications. However, the proposed FDF is assuming that the feedback current signals are ideal currents indicating actual phase currents without any measurement disturbances mainly arising from sensor noise, DC-link voltage ripple, measurement offset, and variations in the plant model. Meanwhile, real control systems in industry have measurement disturbance problems. Phase current corrupted by measurement disturbances increases torque or force ripple, acoustic noise and EMI. Therefore, this dissertation also presents a novel current control method to suppress measurement disturbances without extra hardware. The controller is based on an extended state observer (ESO) and a nonlinear P controller (NLP). The proposed method does not require an accurate mathematical model of system and can be implemented on a low-cost DSP controller. The proposed ESO is exploited to estimate the measurement disturbances on measured phase currents, and the proposed NLP compensates for the measurement disturbances estimated by the ESO. The performance of the proposed current control is validated through extensive dynamic simulations and experiments. Moreover, this rejection of measurement disturbances results in a reduction of force ripple and acoustic noise. Due to superior and robust current control performance, it is believed that the proposed method can be successfully applied into other motor drive systems to suppress measurement disturbances with the same promising results without extra hardware. / Ph. D.

Granular materials are widely used as unbound layers within the infrastructure system playing a significant role on performance and maintenance. However, fields like pavement and railway engineering still heavily rely on empirically-based models owing to the complex behaviour of these materials, which partly stems from their discrete nature. In this sense, the discrete element method (DEM) presents a numerical alternative to study the behaviour of discrete systems with explicit consideration of the processes at particulate level governing the macroscopic response.  This thesis aims at providing micromechanical insight into the effect of different particle sizes on the load-bearing structure of granular materials and its influence on the resilient modulus and permanent deformation response, both of which are greatly influenced by the stress level. In order to accomplish this, binary mixtures of elastic spheres under axisymmetric stress are studied using DEM as the simplest expression for gap-graded materials, which in turn also can be seen as a simplification of more complex mixtures. First, the effect of the fines content on the force transmission at contact level was studied. Results were used to define a soil fabric classification system where the roles of the coarse and fine fractions were defined and quantified in terms of force transmission. A behavioural correspondence between numerical mixtures and granular materials was established, where the mixtures were able to reproduce some of the most significant features regarding the resilient modulus and permanent strain dependency on stress level for granular materials. A good correlation between soil fabric and performance was also found. Generally, higher resilient modulus and lower deformation values were observed for interactive fabrics, whereas the opposite held for instable fabrics. Mixtures of elastic spheres are far from granular materials, where numerous additional factors should be considered. Nevertheless, it is the author’s belief that this work provides insight into the soil fabric structure and its effect on the macroscopic response of granular materials. / Grus i form av krossat bergmaterial används i stor utsträckning som obundna bär- och förstärkningslager inom tranportinfrastrukturen och spelar där en viktig roll för verkningsätt, drift och underhåll. Det finns emellertid begränsad kunskap om de fundamentala mekanismerna på partikelnivå (d.v.s. enskilda gruskorn), mekanismer som styr det makromekaniska verkningssättet. Områden såsom väg- och järnvägsbyggnad bygger fortfarande väsentligen på empiriskta baserade modeller p.g.a. dessa materials komplexa uppträdande under belastning. Denna komplexitet beror delvis på den diskreta naturen hos problemet vilket innebär att traditionell matematisk modellering som vore materialen homogena och kontinuerliga, blir inadekvat. Mot denna bakgrund utgör den s.k. diskreta elementmetoden (DEM) ett numeriskt alternativ för att studera verkningssätt hos diskreta system där man explicit beaktar mekanismerna på partikelnivå. Denna avhandling, som baseras på tre vetenskapliga bidrag, syftar till att ge mikromekaniska insikter vad gäller effekten av olika partikelstorlekar på bärförmågan hos grusmateral och dess inverkan på styvhet och motstånd mot permanenta deformationer. Båda dessa parametrar påverkas kraftigt av spänningsnivån och kan studeras genom triaxialförsök. För att undersöka detta studerades med hjälp av DEM binära blandningar av elastiska kulor – den enklaste modellen av grusmaterial med språng i fördelningskurvan – som utsattes för axialsymmetrisk belastning. Denna modell kan i sin tur ses som en förenkling av mer komplexa blandningar. Inledningsvis studerades effekten av finpartikelinnehållet på partikelkontakternas kraftöverföring. Resultaten användes för att klassificera olika typer av skelettstrukturer i grusmaterialet där den finare och den grövre fraktionens roller kvantifierades med utgångspunkt från kraftöverföringen i stället för från det makromekaniska verkningssättet. Resultaten visade en korrelation vad gäller verkningssättet mellan numeriska blandningar och grusmaterial, där de numeriska blandningarna kunde reproducera några av grusmaterials viktigaste kännetecken vad gäller spänningsberoendet för styvheten vid avlastning och motståndet mot permanent deformation. Vidare visades att styvheten kunde bestämmas ur första belastningscykeln vilket underlättar att övervinna de begränsningar avseende beräkningstid som annars förknippas med DEM. God överensstämmelse mellan grusmaterialets skelettstruktur och verkningssätt kunde också observeras. Generellt observerades högre styvhet och mindre permanenta deformationer för interaktiva skelettstrukturer medan det motsatta gällde för instabila strukturer. Numeriska blandningar av elastiska kulor är långt från verkliga grusmaterial, för vilka ett stort antal ytterligare faktorer måste beaktas. Icke desto mindre är det författarens övertygelse att detta arbete ger insikter i grusmaterialets skelettstruktur och dess effekter på det makromekaniska verkningssättet hos grusmaterial. / <p>QC 20161116</p>