Graduate

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία πραγματεύεται τη μελέτη και κατασκευή μονοφασικών ανορθωτικών διατάξεων για εργαστηριακούς σκοπούς. Η εργασία αυτή εκπονήθηκε στο Εργαστήριο Ηλεκτρομηχανικής Μετατροπής Ενέργειας του Τμήματος Ηλεκτρολόγων Μηχανικών και Τεχνολογίας Υπολογιστών της Πολυτεχνικής Σχολής του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών. Σκοπός είναι η κατασκευή των τριών ελεγχόμενων μονοφασικών ανορθωτών με θυρίστορ, δηλαδή του ανορθωτή ενός παλμού, του ανορθωτή δύο παλμών με μετασχηματιστή μεσαίας λήψης και της ανορθωτικής γέφυρας με τέσσερα θυρίστορ. Απώτερος στόχος είναι η πραγματοποίηση μετρήσεων τάσης και ρεύματος σε διάφορα σημεία των διατάξεων καθώς και η επικοινωνία της κατασκευής με ηλεκτρονικό υπολογιστή μέσω του οποίου θα πραγματοποιείται ο έλεγχος των διατάξεων και θα προβάλλονται οι μετρήσεις, ώστε να χρησιμοποιηθεί η διάταξη για εργαστηριακούς σκοπούς. Αρχικά εξετάζεται η δυνατότητα που υπάρχει να υλοποιηθούν και οι τρείς μονοφασικές ανορθωτικές διατάξεις με χρήση τεσσάρων μόνο θυρίστορ και ενός γενικού κυκλώματος ισχύος αντί να κατασκευαστούν τρείς ξεχωριστοί μετατροπείς. Για τον σκοπό αυτό μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν ρελέ τα οποία μεταβάλλουν την τοπολογία του κυκλώματος ισχύος ανάλογα με το ποιά ανορθωτική διάταξη είναι επιθυμητό να υλοποιείται κάθε φορά. Στη συνέχεια εξετάζονται θέματα που αφορούν την επικοινωνία της διάταξης με το χρήστη και με τον ηλεκτρονικό υπολογιστή, με σκοπό την επιλογή του τρόπου λειτουργίας της καθώς και της γωνίας έναυσης των μετατροπέων, την παλμοδότηση των θυρίστορ, τον έλεγχο των ρελέ του κυκλώματος ισχύος και την τροφοδοσία των τυλιγμάτων τους, καθώς και τη χρήση μετρητικών στοιχείων τάσης και ρεύματος για την πραγματοποίηση ηλεκτρικών μετρήσεων στο κύκλωμα ισχύος. Για τη διεκπεραίωση των περισσοτέρων από αυτές τις λειτουργίες, κυρίαρχο ρόλο έχει ο μικροελεγκτής DSPIC30F4011. Το επόμενο βήμα είναι η δημιουργία ενός εικονικού οργάνου (VI) στην εφαρμογή LabVIEW μέσω του οποίου πραγματοποιείται ο έλεγχος της κατασκευής μέσω ηλεκτρονικού υπολογιστή και προβάλλονται οι μετρήσεις που προέρχονται από τα μετρητικά στοιχεία του κυκλώματος ισχύος. Τέλος, κατασκευάζονται οι διατάξεις στο εργαστήριο και στη συνέχεια πραγματοποιούνται μετρήσεις με σκοπό την επιβεβαίωση και την αξιολόγηση της λειτουργίας της κατασκευής. / This thesis deals with the design and construction of single-phase rectifier devices for laboratory purposes . The work was conducted in Electromechanical Energy Conversion Laboratory , Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Patras . The aim is the construction of the three single phase controlled thyristor rectifiers, the one pulse rectifier , the two pulses rectifier with split-winding transformer and the four thyristors bridge rectifier. The uppermost goal is to perform measurements of voltage and current at various points of the power circuit and to carry out construction-computer communication through which the construction can be controlled and electrical measurements can be viewed.

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία εξετάζει την μελέτη, την εξομοίωση και την κατασκευή μιας νέας τοπολογίας για τη διασύνδεση ενός φωτοβολταϊκού πλαισίου με το δίκτυο χαμηλής τάσης του δικτύου. Η διάταξη που επιλέχτηκε αποτελεί την πρώτη βαθμίδα σε ένα σύστημα που χρησιμοποιεί μετατροπέα δύο βαθμίδων για την αντιστροφή της τάσης του φωτοβολταϊκού πλαισίου έτσι ώστε να επιτευχθεί η σύνδεση του με το δίκτυο. Η βασική λειτουργία της διάταξης αυτής είναι η ανύψωση και η σταθεροποίηση της τάσης στην έξοδο. Το κύκλωμα που μελετήθηκε είναι τύπου Boost με έναν μετασχηματιστή αντί για το πηνίο. Το πρωτεύον του μετασχηματιστή τοποθετείται στη θέση του πηνίου και το δευτερεύον σε σειρά στην έξοδο, έτσι ώστε να επιτυγχάνετε η περαιτέρω ανύψωση της τάσης. Η κατασκευή του μετατροπέα πραγματοποιήθηκε στο εργαστήριο και ο έλεγχος της διάταξης έγινε με τη χρήση μικροελεγκτή (dsPIC30F4011). Τα πειραματικά αποτελέσματα επιβεβαίωσαν την θεωρητική ανάλυση που έγινε και την ορθή λειτουργία του κυκλώματος μας. Ο βαθμός απόδοσης κρίνετε ικανοποιητικά υψηλός καθώς και το κέρδος τάσης του μετατροπέα. Η τοπολογία μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί με διάφορες παραλλαγές της και σε άλλα κυκλώματα επιτρέποντας έτσι την βελτίωση των χαρακτηριστικών τους όπως αύξηση της απόδοσης και του κέρδους τάσης. / -

This master thesis aim to design and evaluate a high power 3-phase DC/AC and AC/AC converter. The purpose is to use it for an electric motor in an aircraft possibly driving electric actuators, a propeller in an UAV or a small vehicle. Factors such as power loss and weight are of importance and will be estimated using known models supplied by various manufacturers of components. Different topologies of semiconductors suitable for this purpose are examined and presented. Extensive resources have been put to properly select the most suitable switching device according to their power loss and weight. The need for filters and protective circuits will be estimated according to regulations of common military avionic standards and will be included in the resulting estimation along with simulations to evaluate their need and importance. Snubber circuits will be presented and their specific ability to reduce voltage transients and switching losses will be examined along with some simulations to illustrate their performance. In the final part an estimation of efficiency and weight of higher and lower power models of the same inverter has been made using the same procedure as presented in this paper. Engineering rules have been formed from these estimations to simply be able to calculate the proportions of a future converter of arbitrary rated power.

Power is one of the today’s major constraints for both hardware and software design. Thus the need to understand the statistics and distribution of power consumption from a hardware and software perspective is high. Power models satisfy this requirement to a certain extent, by estimating the power consumption for a subset of applications, or by providing a detailed power consumption distribution of a system. Till date, many power models have been proposed for the desktop and mobile platforms. However, most of these models were created based on power measurements performed on the entire system when different microbenchmarks stressing different blocks of the system were run. Then the measured power and the profiled information of the subsystem stressing benchmarks were used to create a regression analysis based model. Here, the power/energy prediction accuracy of the models created in this way, depend on both the method and accuracy of the power measurements and the type of regression used in generating the model. This work tries to eliminate the dependency of the accuracy of the power models on the type of regression analysis used, by performing power measurements at a subsystem granularity. When the power measurement of a single subsystem is obtained while stressing it, one can know the exact power it is consuming, instead of obtaining the power consumption of the entire system - without knowing the power consumption of the subsystem of interest - and depending on the regression analysis to provide the answer. Here we propose a generic method that can be used to create power models of individual subsystems of mobile platforms, and validate the method by presenting an empirical power model of the OMAP4460 based Pandaboard-ES, created using the proposed method. The created model has an average percentage of energy prediction error of just around -2.7% for the entire Pandaboard-ES system.

As the speed and power demands on Buck converters continue to increase, it has become time to replace the linearly-controlled conventional Buck converter. Digital circuits, such as microprocessors, are requiring higher dynamic currents, at lower voltages, than ever before. Traditionally, such Buck converters have been controlled by linear voltage-mode or current-mode control methods. While these controllers offer such advantages as fixed switching frequencies and zero steady-state error, their reaction speed is inherently limited by their bandwidth which is a fraction of the converter switching frequency. Therefore, to improve the transient response of a Buck converter in a practical manner, four novel ideas are presented in this thesis. The first contribution is an analog “charge balance controller”. The control method utilizes the concept of capacitor charge balance to achieve a near-optimal transient response for Buck converters undergoing a rapid load change. Unlike previous work, the proposed controller does not require expensive and/or slow analog multipliers/dividers. In addition, the nominal inductance value is not required by the proposed controller. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate a significant improvement in transient performance over that of a linear voltage-mode controller. For low duty cycle applications, the unloading transient performance of a Buck converter tends to be poor when compared to the corresponding loading transient performance. Therefore, the second contribution is an auxiliary circuit and an analog auxiliary controller which drastically improves the performance of a Buck converter undergoing an unloading transient. Significant overshoot reduction was observed over that of a linearly-controlled conventional Buck converter. The third contribution is a digital implementation of the aforementioned “charge balance control” concept. Through digital implementation the control law is extended to include load-line regulation. Unlike previous work, large lookup tables are not required to perform complex mathematical functions, thus the number of required gates is significantly reduced. The final contribution is a digital implementation of the “charge balance controller” capable of operating with the previously-mentioned auxiliary circuit. This complete solution is capable of improving the voltage deviation caused by loading and unloading transients. In addition, the combined auxiliary circuit and control law is extended to load-line regulation applications. / Thesis (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2010-01-31 23:01:24.606

This thesis discusses a power electronics module (PEM) that is used to extract power from a human energy harvesting generator according to the user’s desired input power, and stores all of the extracted energy into an appropriately sized battery while staying within the charging limitations of the battery. The PEM can temporarily store the peak power produced by the generator allowing the reduction in the size of the battery required to the average power production level of the generator. The battery’s safety and longevity is maintained by charging them at the constant current and constant voltage rate. The design of the two-stage PEM, the requirements of the Energy Storage Capacitor (ESC) and battery size are discussed. The two controllers that control the PEM are explained and the different operating modes of the controllers are reviewed. A two-stage prototype digitally controlled average current mode control Boost converter and average current mode controlled Buck converter were designed and experimental waveforms were captured to test and validate the control theories used in the PEM. A Voltage Adaptive Gain compensator was used to optimize the closed loop response of both the Boost and Buck converters over their respective output and input voltage ranges. The DC efficiency of the prototype was measured with the peak efficiency of the Boost converter equal to 93% and the peak efficiency of the Buck converter measured at 93.7%. The total PEM system efficiency was measured at 87.9% at an input power level of 10 watts. The AC efficiency of the PEM was also measured with a peak efficiency of 91% with Vin = 15 V at Rin = 60 Ω. The software considerations for an embedded system, including power consumption and timing of real time events are reviewed. A software flow chart and timing diagram are provided to help visualize the sequence of the code. A design chart for selection of the size and voltage rating of the ESC was created. An experimental comparison of a single stage design without energy storage capability and the current PEM design was performed, with a power limited source, in order to show the effectiveness of the PEM and controllers at maximizing the power extraction from the generator. The PEM design was able to extract 50% more power than the single stage converter without energy storage capability. / Thesis (Master, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2012-03-20 01:25:20.986

Improved transient performance and converter miniaturization are the major driving factors behind high frequency operation of switching power supplies. However, high speed operation is limited by topology, control, semiconductor, and packaging technologies. The inherent mitigation of switching loss in resonant converters makes them prime candidates for use when the limits of switching frequency are pushed. The goal of this thesis is to address two areas that practically limit the achievable switching frequency of resonant topologies. Traditional control methods based on single cycle response are impractical at high frequency; forcing the use of pulse density modulation (PDM) techniques. However, existing pulse density modulation strategies for resonant converters in dc/dc applications suffer from: • High semiconductor current stress. • Slow response and large filter size determined by the low modulating frequency. • Possibly operating at fractions of resonant cycles leading to switching loss; thereby limiting the modulating frequency. A series resonant converter with variable frequency PDM (VF-PDM) with integral resonant cycle control is presented to overcome the limitations of existing PDM techniques to enable efficient operation with high switching frequency and modulating frequency. The operation of the circuit is presented and analyzed, with a design procedure given to achieve fast transient performance, small filter size, and high efficiency across the load range with current stress comparable to conventional control techniques. It is shown that digital implementation of the controller can achieve favourable results with a clock frequency four times greater than the switching frequency. Driving the synchronous rectifiers is a considerable challenge in high current applications operating at high switching frequency. Resonant gate drivers with continuous inductor current experience excessive conduction loss, while discontinuous current drivers are subject to slow transitions and high peak current. Current source drivers suffer from high component count and increased conduction loss when applied to complementary switches. A dual-channel current source driver is presented as a means of driving two complementary switches. A single coupled inductor with discontinuous current facilitates low conduction loss by transferring charge between the MOSFET gates to reduce the number of semiconductors in the current path, and reducing the number of conduction intervals. The operation of the circuit is analyzed, and a design procedure based on minimization of the total synchronous rectifier loss is presented. Implementation of the digital logic to control the driver is discussed. Experimental results at megahertz operating frequencies are presented for both areas addressed to verify the theoretical results. / Thesis (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-09 20:43:56.997

The intention of this dissertation is to determine, on the Eskom system, if the pre-insertion closing resistors installed on the Alpha-Beta 765 kV line breakers are preventing overvoltages from being caused during auto-reclosing. Other possible solutions of reclosing protection are investigated. It has been shown on two occasions, from actual field data that overvoltages have occurred on the lines after reclosing. High overvoltages on this network could be the cause of the many reactor failures that have occurred. A mathematical model of the Alpha-Beta 765kV system was produced on Matlab/Simulink to simulate the resonance of the line during opening and then the effect on the voltage when reclosing takes place. The effects of installing pre-insertion resistors to reduce overvoltages on reclosing were analysed, as well as looking at controlled reclosing at the optimal voltage across the line breakers. It was shown from the studies, that pre-insertion resistors do limit the overvoltages to within the surge capabilities of the line (10% overvoltage) and that the cause of the previous overvoltages were actually due to insertion resistor operations failure. It was also shown that the method of controlled closing at optimal voltage across the breakers is also a successful method of preventing overvoltages. This dissertation also evaluates a design specification for a switching relay for controlled re-closing of the line. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

Transient stability of electric energy grids is defined as the ability of the power system to remain in synchronism during large disturbances. If the grid is not equipped with controllers capable of transiently stabilizing system dynamics, large disturbances could cause protection to trigger disconnecting the equipment and leading further to cascading system-wide blackouts. Today’s practice of tuning controllers generally does not guarantee a transiently stable response because it does not use a model for representing system-wide dynamic interactions. To overcome this problem, in this thesis we propose a new systems modeling and control design for provable transient stabilization of power systems against a given set of disturbances. Of particular interest are fast power-electronically-controlled Flexible Alternating Current Transmission System (FACTS) devices which have become a new major option for achieving transient stabilization. The first major contribution of this thesis is a framework for modeling of general interconnected power systems for very fast transient stabilization using FACTS devices. We recognize that a dynamic model for transient stabilization of power systems has to capture fast electromagnetic dynamics of the transmission grid and FACTS, in addition to the commonly-modeled generator dynamics. To meet this need, a nonlinear dynamic model of general interconnected electric power systems is derived using time-varying phasors associated with states of all dynamic components. The second major contribution of this thesis is a two-level approach to modeling and control which exploits the unique network structure and enables preserving only relevant dynamics in the nonlinear system model. This approach is fundamentally based on separating: a) internal dynamics model for ensuring stable local response of components; b) system-level model in terms of interaction variables for ensuring stability of the system when the components are interconnected. The two levels can be controlled separately which minimizes the need for communication between controllers. Both distributed and cooperative ectropy-based controllers are proposed to control the interaction-level of system dynamics. Proof of concept simulations are presented to illustrate and compare the promising performance of the derived controllers. Some of the most advanced FACTS industry installations are modeled and further generalized using our approach.