This thesis investigates the effect of the ripple current on the output power of solar cells. A solar panel with several metal halide lamps is set up to emulate the photovoltaic power system, which is cascaded by a boost converter and a buck-boost converter to extract triangular and trapezoidal currents, respectively. All experiments are operated under the room temperature with different current ripples and frequencies. The measured current and voltage waveforms at the output powers indicate that the dynamic characteristics are very different from static ones obtained from the dc loads. It is found that the output voltage lags the current when the peak of the rippled current goes beyond the maximum power point (MPP), leading to a declination in the average output power. This phenomenon becomes more severe for a higher peak, lower frequency, and larger charge of the rippled current exceeding the MPP. In addition, the declination in the average power may cause a shift of the MPP.

A new DC-DC up converter with high efficiency and low output ripple is proposed. We replace previous charge pump converters by switched-capacitor converters to improve the power efficiency and add a voltage regulator at the output to reduce the ripple voltage. The converter reduces the magnitude of output voltage ripples to 36% of the previous converter, and improves the power efficiency from 58% to 73%. The proposed converter is designed to obtain 1.6 mA driving capability with a output voltage around 5.3 ~ 5.4 V. A VCO is also added as the load to test the converter circuit. The VCO is insensititive to power supply noises. The proposed converter circuit is simulated in a TSMC 0.35-um Mixed-mode (2P4M) CMOS process.

Fuel cells are expected to play an important role in future power generation. However, significant technical challenges remain and the commercial breakthrough of fuel cells is hindered by the high price of fuel cell components. As is well known, the fuel cells do not provide the robust source characteristics required to effectively follow the load during significant load steps and they have limited overload-handling capability. Further, the performance of the fuel cell is significantly degraded when the CO (Carbon Monoxide) is contained in the hydrogen fuel. In this thesis several new approaches to improve the performance of PEM based fuel cell power systems are discussed. In the first section an impedance model of the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Stack (PEMFCS) is first proposed. This equivalent circuit model of the fuel cell stack is derived by a frequency response analysis (FRA) technique to evaluate the effects of the ripple current generated by the power-conditioning unit. Experimental results are presented to show the effects of the ripple currents. In the second section, a fuel cell powered UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) system is proposed. In this approach, two PEM Fuel Cell modules along with suitable DC/DC and DC/AC power electronic converter modules are employed. A Supercapacitor module is also employed to compensate for instantaneous power fluctuations including overload and to overcome the slow dynamics of the fuel processor such as reformers. A complete design example for a 1-kVA system is presented. In the third section, an advanced power converter topology is proposed to significantly improve the CO tolerance on PEM based fuel cell power systems. An additional two-stage dc-dc converter with a supercapacitor module is connected to the fuel cell to draw a low frequency (0.5Hz) pulsating current of the specific amplitude (20-30[A]) from the fuel cell stack. CO on the catalyst surface can be electro-oxidized by using this technique, and thereby the CO tolerance of the system can be significantly improved. Simulation and experimental results show the validity and feasibility of the proposed scheme.

This thesis addresses the evolution of nanoscale ripple patterns on solid surfaces during low-energy ion sputtering. Particular attention is paid to the long-time regime in which the surface evolution is dominated by nonlinear processes. This is explored in simulation and experiment. In numerical simulations, the influence of anisotropy on the evolution of the surface patterns in the anisotropic stochastic Kuramoto-Sivashinsky (KS) equation with and without damping is studied. For a strong nonlinear anisotropy, a 90 rotation of the initial ripple pattern is observed and explained by anisotropic renormalization properties of the anisotropic KS equation. This explanation is supported by comparison with analytical predictions. In contrast to the isotropic stochastic KS equation, interrupted ripple coarsening is found in the presence of low damping. This coarsening seems to be a nonlinear anisotropy effect that occurs only in a narrow range of the nonlinear anisotropy parameter. Ex-situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) investigations of Si(100) surfaces sputtered with sub-keV Ar ions under oblique ion incidence show the formation of a periodic ripple pattern. This pattern is oriented normal to the direction of the ion beam and has a periodicity well below 100 nm. With increasing ion fluence, the ripple pattern is superposed by larger corrugations that form another quasi-periodic pattern at high fluences. This ripple-like pattern is oriented parallel to the direction of the ion beam and has a periodicity of around one micrometer. Interrupted wavelength coarsening is observed for both patterns. A dynamic scaling analysis of the AFM images shows the appearance of anisotropic scaling at large lateral scales and high fluences. Based on comparison with the predictions of different nonlinear continuum models, the recent hydrodynamic model of ion erosion, a generalization of the anisotropic KS equation, is considered as a potentially powerful continuum description of this experiment. In further in-situ experiments, the dependence of the dynamic scaling behavior of the sputtered Si surface on small variations of the angle of incidence is investigated by grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS). A transition from strongly anisotropic to isotropic scaling is observed. This indicates the presence of at least two fixed points in the system, an anisotropic and an isotropic one. The dynamic scaling exponents of the isotropic fixed point are in reasonable agreement with those of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation. It remains to be seen whether the hydrodynamic model is able to show such a transition from anisotropic to isotropic KPZ-like scaling.

Thesis (Ph.D.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2000. / Restricted until June 2001. Bibliography: leaves 183-193. Also available online.

No description available.

abstract: Switching regulator has several advantages over linear regulator, but the drawback of switching regulator is ripple voltage on output. Previously people use LDO following a buck converter and multi-phase buck converter to reduce the output voltage ripple. However, these two solutions also have obvious drawbacks and limitations. In this thesis, a novel mixed signal adaptive ripple cancellation technique is presented. The idea is to generate an artificial ripple current with the same amplitude as inductor current ripple but opposite phase that has high linearity tracking behavior. To generate the artificial triangular current, duty cycle information and inductor current ripple amplitude information are needed. By sensing switching node SW, the duty cycle information can be obtained; by using feedback the amplitude of the artificial ripple current can be regulated. The artificial ripple current cancels out the inductor current, and results in a very low ripple output current flowing to load. In top level simulation, 19.3dB ripple rejection can be achieved. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Electrical Engineering 2016

Four functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of pitch processing in auditory cortex were designed to reduce the impact of a number of methodological issues that have hitherto limited previous research findings. Due to adaptation effects, it is necessary to repeatedly present short stimulus bursts rather than long-duration stimuli. Thus, conventionally, in neuroimaging studies of pitch perception, a number of short bursts of the pitch stimulus, separated by silent intervals, are compared to a Gaussian noise presented in the same way. The results of the first experiment indicate that replacing the silent intervals with an energetically matched noise context increases the pitch-specific response by removing the 'energy-onset response' that saturates the overall response if silent intervals are used. In the second experiment, a particular pitch-evoking stimulus, iterated ripple noise (IRN), which is commonly used in neuroimaging studies of pitch perception, was examined. Hall and Plack (Cerebral Cortex 2009;19:576-585) showed that IRN contains slowly varying spectro-temporal features unrelated to pitch, and suggested that these features could account for at least some of the cortical activation produced by IRN. The results support this hypothesis, but also suggest that there is an additional pitch-dependent effect in the same region of auditory cortex.The third experiment assessed the effect of using a different control stimulus to the usual Gaussian noise. The new matched controls were a pulse train with randomly jittered inter-pulse intervals and a random-phase unresolved harmonic complex tone. These low-pitch-salience controls were compared to a regular interval pulse train, which is identical to a cosine-phase unresolved harmonic complex tone. The third experiment did not provide evidence for sensitivity to pitch-salience in pitch-responsive regions of auditory cortex. The fourth and final experiment was a factorial design seeking to answer two main questions: 1) Is the pitch-sensitive region of auditory cortex responsive to the salience of other sound features (e.g. modulation)? 2) Are the responses to pitch and to modulation within this region co-located? Two different pitch-evoking stimuli with different levels of pitch salience were used, presented in a noise context. Results indicate that the pitch-sensitive region contains representations for both pitch and modulation. Furthermore, there was no evidence for an interaction between pitch and modulation, suggesting that the two responses are independent. Overall, the results suggest that careful stimulus design, and appropriate experimental control, is necessary to obtain reliable information on the cortical response to pitch. In addition, the results have shed further light on the likely neural substrates of pitch processing in the cortex.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(エネルギー科学) / 甲第18383号 / エネ博第295号 / 新制||エネ||61(附属図書館) / 31241 / 京都大学大学院エネルギー科学研究科エネルギー基礎科学専攻 / (主査)教授 中村 祐司, 教授 岸本 泰明, 教授 前川 孝 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Energy Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

This thesis presents advanced torque control methods for torque ripple reduction and performance improvement in switched reluctance motor (SRM) drives. A new offline torque sharing function (TSF) method is proposed for torque ripple reduction in SRMs. The proposed TSF achieves lower current tracking error by establishing a new current reference generation strategy. The phase current reference is first derived from the torque command using offline calculations and also from the phase current response that is obtained from the dynamic model of the SRM. Then, an optimization problem is formulated to shape the current reference for the objective of minimizing the torque ripple and copper losses, while maintaining the required average output torque at the given operating speed. The dynamic simulation of the SRM model is also utilized in the optimization problem. A new online TSF method is proposed for torque ripple reduction in SRMs. The proposed TSF takes the current dynamics and induced electromotive force into account by establishing a new online current profile generation technique. First, a primary phase current reference derived from the torque reference is applied to the SRM. Then, the decaying phase current after the turn-off angle is sampled, and it is used to update the current reference. A new online optimization strategy is performed to shape the current reference during the operation of the machine. Owing to the proposed current profile generation technique, the optimization process is decoupled to independently minimize the torque ripple by optimizing the turn-on angle and minimizing copper losses by optimizing the turn-off angle. Compared to the conventional TSFs and existing optimization-based TSFs, the proposed two TSFs achieve accurate torque control, improved torque-speed capability, reduced torque ripple, and better current tracking performance. All the proposed TSF methods are validated by both simulations and experiments on a 3-phase, 12/8 SRM. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)