Sharif Digital Repository

Continuity of service of wind energy conversion systems as well as their reliability and performances are some of the major concerns in this power generation area. Six-legs AC/DC/AC converters are normally used in modern wind energy systems like as in the system with a doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG). A sudden failure of the converter can lead to the total or partial loss of the control of the phase currents and can cause serious system malfunction or shutdown. Therefore, to prevent the spread of the fault to the other system components and to ensure continuity of service, fault tolerant converter topologies associated to quick and effective fault detection and compensation methods... 

Wind speed is the most important parameter in the design and study of wind energy conversion systems. The weibull distribution is commonly used for wind energy analysis as it can represent the wind variations with an acceptable level of accuracy. In this study, the wind data for 11 cities in Iran have been analysed over a period of one year. The Goodness of fit test is used for testing data fit to weibull distribution. The results show that this data fit to weibull function very well. The scale and shape factors are two parameters of the weibull distribution that depend on the area under study. The kinds of numerical methods commonly used for estimating weibull parameters are reviewed. Their... 

Doubly fed induction generators (DFIGs) are widely used in wind power systems; hence their reliability model is an important consideration for production assessment and economic analysis of wind energy conversion systems. However, to date mutual influences of reliability analysis, production estimations and economic assessments of wind farms have not been fully investigated. This study proposes a reliability model for DFIG wind turbines considering their subcomponent failure rates and downtimes. The proposed production estimation algorithm leads to an economic assessment for wind farms. A comprehensive spare parts management procedure is then presented in the study. As a case study,... 

In this paper, application of a five-leg converter in Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) for Wind Energy Conversion Systems (WECS) is investigated. The five-leg structure and its PWM control are studied and performances are compared with the classical six-leg topology. The main drawback of five-leg converter with respect to the six-leg back-to-back converter is the need to increase the dc-link voltage for the same operation point, i.e. the same powers in case of WECS. So, different methods for the reduction of the required dc-link voltage in the five-leg case are studied. The five-leg converter is used to replace the conventional six-leg one, with the same ability. For the performance... 

In this study, the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) is used to investigate the deformation of two droplets within microfluidic T-junctions (MFTD). In order to increase the accuracy the two immiscible fluids are modeled using the He-Chen-Zhang model. First, this model is applied to ensure that the surface tension effect existing between the droplets and the continuous fluid is properly implemented in the model. Then the collision and merging of the two droplets within the intersection of a T-shaped microchannel is investigated. For generating droplet formation the effects of relevant dimensionless parameters such as the Reynolds, the Weber numbers as well as a collision parameter affecting the... 

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are rapidly becoming recognized as a new alternative to traditional energy conversion systems because of their high energy efficiency. From an ecological perspective, this environmentally friendly technology, which produces clean energy, is likely to be implemented more frequently in the future. However, the current SOFC technology still cannot meet the demands of commercial applications due to temperature constraints and high cost. To develop a marketable SOFC, suppliers have tended to reduce the operating temperatures by a few hundred degrees. The overall trend for SOFC materials is to reduce their service temperature of electrolyte. Meanwhile, it is... 

In this paper, an FPGA-controlled fault tolerant back-to-back converter for DFIG-based wind energy conversion application is studied. Before an open-circuit failure in one of the semiconductors, the fault tolerant converter operates as a conventional back-to-back six-leg one. After the fault occurrence in one of the switches, the converter will continue its operation with the remaining five healthy legs. Design, implementation, simulation and experimental verification of a reconfigurable control strategy for the fault tolerant six/five leg converter used in wind energy conversion are discussed. The proposed reconfigurable control strategy allows the uninterrupted operation of the converter... 

The main objective of this work is minimizing the cost of electricity of solid oxide fuel cell stacks by decelerating degradation mechanisms rate in long term operation for stationary power generation applications. The degradation mechanisms in solid oxide fuel cells are caused by microstructural changes, reactions between lanthanum strontium manganite and electrolyte, poisoning by chromium, carburization on nickel particles, formation of nickel sulfide, nickel coarsening, nickel oxidation, loss of conductivity and crack formation in the electrolyte. The rate of degradation mechanisms depends on the cell operating conditions (cell voltage and fuel utilization). In this study, the degradation... 

Among different types of geothermal processing used in the energy conversion systems, flash-binary geothermal can be the best scenario for high-temperature geothermal sources. Reviewing the available literature it can be found that the flash-binary geothermal power plants have a great potential to be extended to trigeneration systems, nonetheless they have received less attention. In this regard, a new trigeneration system for freshwater, power, and cooling production is devised using a flash-binary geothermal heat source at 170°C. In this devised trigeneration system, a humidification-dehumidification (HDH) unit is used as a binary cycle. Another merit of the devised trigeneration system is... 

Anaerobic fermentation of crop straw/animal dug can be the most appropriate solution for biomass conversion into applicable renewable energy-based fuels. However, due to the imperfection matching between the biogas combustion process and energy conversion system, a painstakingly design procedure is required to devise high-efficient energy system for capturing biogas efficiently. For this aim, a new trigeneration system driven by biogas is devised for electricity, refrigeration, and potable freshwater generation. The devised system encompasses a gas turbine (GT) cycle, a new cooling/electricity cogeneration system based on organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and ejector cooling cycle (ECC), and a... 

Fast fault detection and converter reconfiguration is necessary for fault tolerant doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) in wind energy conversion systems (WECS) to prevent further damage and to make possible the continuity of service. Extra sensors are needed in order to detect the faults rapidly. In this paper, a very fast FPGA-based fault detection scheme is presented that minimizes the number of additional voltage sensors. A fault tolerant converter topology for this application is studied. Control and fault detection system are implemented on a single FPGA and Hardware in the Loop experiments are performed to evaluate the proposed detection scheme, the digital controller and the fault... 

Thermodynamical optimization for energy conversion system can be performed by decreasing entropy generation. For calculation of entropy, we need to know entropy of ideal gases at 298 K as a reference point. Entropy is a thermodynamic quantity which is not easily measured and prediction of entropy by molecular structures for new designed molecules may be a challenge. An easy and accurate equation for prediction of absolute entropy of pure ideal gas at 298 K was introduced for the first time based on the quantitative structure property relationship (QSPR) approach. Thousand seven hundred pure chemical compounds and 3224 molecular descriptors were used for finding this easy equation by genetic...