Thesis (Ph. D.)--Arizona State University, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [137]-153).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1993. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-155).

Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2008.

Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-210). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Offshore wind energy is seen as the most promising source of electricity generation for achieving the European renewable energy targets. A number of wind farms are planned and under installation to collect the huge potential of wind energy at farther distances in the North Sea. The number of HVDC links in the North Sea is expected to increase with the development of offshore installations in Round 3 of the UK offshore windfarm programme. The increasing number of HVDC links and high power transfer control requirements leads to the formation of Multi-Terminal HVDC (MTDC) grid systems, which have become possible due to the technical advancements of VSC based HVDC systems. Additionally, a meshed MTDC grid structure can also provide interconnections for power trade across the Europe, which can help in better utilisation of power from offshore installations and can also support the AC network in tackling wind power variation issues. However, the integration of the meshed MTDC grid with the existing AC grid has more challenges to overcome alongside the added advantages. One of the major challenge is to ensure the secure and optimal operation of the combined AC/MTDC grid considering stability requirements of the AC and DC grids in different operating conditions. The behaviour of the DC grid is governed by the fast acting controllers due to the high number of power electronic equipment unlike AC grid. In combined operation the response to a disturbance of two integrated grids can be different. The power balancing, co-ordination and dispatch requirements need to be identified, to implement appropriate controls and formulate a control structure for combined operation of two grids with different characteristics under normal and disturbance conditions. In this thesis, the basic principles of well-established three-layered AC grid control is employed to identify the power balancing, coordination and dispatch requirements of the DC grid. Appropriate control methods are proposed for primary, secondary and tertiary control layers in order to accomplish the identified requirements for the secure and optimal operation of combined AC/MTDC grids. Firstly, a comparison study is performed on different power balancing controls to find the most suitable control method for the primary control of the meshed DC grid. Secondly, the combined AC/DC grid power flow method is proposed to provide updated references of the VSC station in order to maintain coordinated power flow control under secondary control layers. Finally, security constraint optimization method for combined AC/DC grid is proposed for economic dispatch under the tertiary control layer of the three-layered hierarchal control. A number of case studies are performed to implement the proposed control methods on a combined AC/DC test case network. The performance of the proposed control methods is validated in a hierarchical control structure for secure and optimal operation integrated AC/MTDC grids.

No description available.

SILVA, R. F. Otimização de Risers de materiais compósitos. 2012. 96 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Engenharia Civil: Estruturas e Construção Civil) – Centro de Tecnologia, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, 2012. / Submitted by Marlene Sousa (mmarlene@ufc.br) on 2015-08-10T16:53:44Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2012_dis_rfsilva.pdf: 5963052 bytes, checksum: 8a942160f8a3333a4b3fb8c0cf3ad64f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marlene Sousa(mmarlene@ufc.br) on 2015-08-11T11:44:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2012_dis_rfsilva.pdf: 5963052 bytes, checksum: 8a942160f8a3333a4b3fb8c0cf3ad64f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-08-11T11:44:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2012_dis_rfsilva.pdf: 5963052 bytes, checksum: 8a942160f8a3333a4b3fb8c0cf3ad64f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-08-31 / The depletion of oil and gas reserves has increasingly led to the search of deepwater fields. Most of recent oil and gas discoveries in Brazil occurred in deepwater fields. However, using steel risers for deepwater application is not always feasible, due to its high weight. In such enviroments, the traditional extraction and production risers made of steel tend to become expensive, due to increased top tension which overburdens the plataform. Fiber reinforced composite materials, being lighter, present interesting characteristics for offshore applications, such as high specific strength and stiffness, high corrosion resistance, good thermal insulation, high structural damping properties, and fatigue resistance. Thus, the application of composite risers is an interesting alternative to deepwater oil fields. The design of laminated composite risers is very difficult since the strength and stiffness of these components depend on the number of layers and the material, thickness, and orientation of each layer. Thus, the use of the conventional trial-and-error strategy is not adequate and it is necessary to apply optimization techniques. In this work, optimization techniques are applied to optimize composite catenary risers. the design variables are the thickness, the orientation and material of each layer. A multi-objective formulation is adopted to minimize the weight, cost and maximize the buckling safety factor of the composite riser. The optimization model includes strength and stability constraints and considers multiple load cases. The global analysis of the riser is carried out using the catenary equations and the stress computation in the critical locations is performed using the Classical Lamination Theory (CLT) and the theory of thin-walled tubes. It is important to note that, due to manufacture constraints, the design variables can only assume discrete values. Therefore, a genetic algorithm is used for optimization since it can easily handle discrete variables. In addition to classical genetic operators, as crossover and mutation, this algorithm also includes operators specially designed to handle laminate structures, such as layer swap and layer deletion. The proposed formulation is applied in the design optimization of composite catenary risers with different water depths and top angles. Numerical examples show that the proposed methodology is very robust / Materiais compósitos reforçados por fibras têm sido cada vez mais empregados devido a suas altas relações rigidez/peso e resistência/peso, além de outras vantagens, como alta resistência à corrosão, bom isolamento térmico, excelente amortecimento e resistência à fadiga. Por isso, estes materiais têm sido aplicados na fabricação de tubos para o transporte de fluidos em diversas indústrias, como por exemplo, a petroquímica. A exploração e produção de petróleo e gás em águas profundas tornam necessário o uso de plataformas flutuantes conectadas ao poço por dutos (flowlines) e risers, que quando feitos de aço, se tornam menos atrativos devido ao seu elevado peso. Nessas condições, requerem-se mecanismos capazes de suportar as altas tensões desenvolvidas no topo, sendo que tais mecanismos só podem ser acomodados por plataformas maiores e mais caras. Além disso, torna-se necessário também o uso de mais flutuadores visando suportar o peso total do sistema, encarecendo também o projeto. Diante de tais fatos, tem-se estudado a viabilidade do emprego de risers de materiais compósitos na exploração em águas ultra-profundas. Devido ao grande número de parâmetros envolvidos, tais como o número de camadas e o material, a espessura e o ângulo de orientação das fibras de cada camada, o projeto de estruturas de compósitos laminados é mais complexo que o de aço. No caso dos risers, acrescentam-se ainda as várias condições de carregamento e ambientais que tornam o processo de projeto tradicional de tentativa e erro inadequado. Uma solução apenas satisfatória não explora, em geral, o potencial que os compósitos apresentam de se adaptarem às solicitações da forma mais eficiente possível. Esse trabalho tem como objetivo desenvolver uma metodologia e ferramentas computacionais para o pré-dimensionamento de risers de material compósito via técnicas de otimização. São consideradas como váriaveis de projeto as espessuras, as orientações das fibras e os materiais de cada lâmina. Peso, custo e um fator de segurança são adotados como função objetivo. Restrições de resistencia, estabilidade e fabricação avaliadas. O riser é análisado usando um modelo de catenária inextensível. Um Algoritmo Genético com operadores específicos para estruturas laminadas é empregado

No description available.

No description available.