Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 84
Description
This thesis addresses the issue of making an economic case for energy storage in power systems. Bulk energy storage has often been suggested for large scale electric power systems in order to levelize load; store energy when it is inexpensive and discharge energy when it is expensive; potentially defer transmission and generation expansion; and provide for generation reserve margins. As renewable energy resource penetration increases, the uncertainty and variability of wind and solar may be alleviated by bulk energy storage technologies. The quadratic programming function in MATLAB is used to simulate an economic dispatch that includes energy storage. A program is created that utilizes quadratic programming to analyze various cases using a 2010 summer peak load from the Arizona transmission system, part of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC). The MATLAB program is used first to test the Arizona test bed with a low level of energy storage to study how the storage power limit effects several optimization out-puts such as the system wide operating costs. Very high levels of energy storage are then added to see how high level energy storage affects peak shaving, load factor, and other system applications. Finally, various constraint relaxations are made to analyze why the applications tested eventually approach a constant value. This research illustrates the use of energy storage which helps minimize the system wide generator operating cost by "shaving" energy off of the peak demand.
ContributorsRuggiero, John (Author) / Heydt, Gerald T (Thesis advisor) / Datta, Rajib (Committee member) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Underground cables have been widely used in big cities. This is because underground cables offer the benefits of reducing visual impact and the disturbance caused by bad weather (wind, ice, snow, and the lightning strikes). Additionally, when placing power lines underground, the maintenance costs can also be reduced as a result. The underground cable rating calculation is the most critical part of designing the cable construction and cable installation. In this thesis, three contributions regarding the cable ampacity study have been made. First, an analytical method for rating of underground cables has been presented. Second, this research also develops the steady state and transient ratings for Salt River Project (SRP) 69 kV underground system using the commercial software CYMCAP for several typical substations. Third, to find an alternative way to predict the cable ratings, three regression models have been built. The residual plot and mean square error for the three methods have been analyzed. The conclusion is dawn that the nonlinear regression model provides the sufficient accuracy of the cable rating prediction for SRP's typical installation.
ContributorsWang, Tong (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This thesis concerns the flashover issue of the substation insulators operating in a polluted environment. The outdoor insulation equipment used in the power delivery infrastructure encounter different types of pollutants due to varied environmental conditions. Various methods have been developed by manufacturers and researchers to mitigate the flashover problem. The application of Room Temperature Vulcanized (RTV) silicone rubber is one such favorable method as it can be applied over the already installed units. Field experience has already showed that the RTV silicone rubber coated insulators have a lower flashover probability than the uncoated insulators. The scope of this research is to quantify the improvement in the flashover performance. Artificial contamination tests were carried on station post insulators for assessing their performance. A factorial experiment design was used to model the flashover performance. The formulation included the severity of contamination and leakage distance of the insulator samples. Regression analysis was used to develop a mathematical model from the data obtained from the experiments. The main conclusion drawn from the study is that the RTV coated insulators withstood much higher levels of contamination even when the coating had lost its hydrophobicity. This improvement in flashover performance was found to be in the range of 20-40%. A much better flashover performance was observed when the coating recovered its hydrophobicity. It was also seen that the adhesion of coating was excellent even after many tests which involved substantial discharge activity.
ContributorsGholap, Vipul (Author) / Gorur, Ravi S (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Creative design lies at the intersection of novelty and technical feasibility. These objectives can be achieved through cycles of divergence (idea generation) and convergence (idea evaluation) in conceptual design. The focus of this thesis is on the latter aspect. The evaluation may involve any aspect of technical feasibility and may be desired at component, sub-system or full system level. Two issues that are considered in this work are: 1. Information about design ideas is incomplete, informal and sketchy 2. Designers often work at multiple levels; different aspects or subsystems may be at different levels of abstraction Thus, high fidelity analysis and simulation tools are not appropriate for this purpose. This thesis looks at the requirements for a simulation tool and how it could facilitate concept evaluation. The specific tasks reported in this thesis are: 1. The typical types of information available after an ideation session 2. The typical types of technical evaluations done in early stages 3. How to conduct low fidelity design evaluation given a well-defined feasibility question A computational tool for supporting idea evaluation was designed and implemented. It was assumed that the results of the ideation session are represented as a morphological chart and each entry is expressed as some combination of a sketch, text and references to physical effects and machine components. Approximately 110 physical effects were identified and represented in terms of algebraic equations, physical variables and a textual description. A common ontology of physical variables was created so that physical effects could be networked together when variables are shared. This allows users to synthesize complex behaviors from simple ones, without assuming any solution sequence. A library of 16 machine elements was also created and users were given instructions about incorporating them. To support quick analysis, differential equations are transformed to algebraic equations by replacing differential terms with steady state differences), only steady state behavior is considered and interval arithmetic was used for modeling. The tool implementation is done by MATLAB; and a number of case studies are also done to show how the tool works. textual description. A common ontology of physical variables was created so that physical effects could be networked together when variables are shared. This allows users to synthesize complex behaviors from simple ones, without assuming any solution sequence. A library of 15 machine elements was also created and users were given instructions about incorporating them. To support quick analysis, differential equations are transformed to algebraic equations by replacing differential terms with steady state differences), only steady state behavior is considered and interval arithmetic was used for modeling. The tool implementation is done by MATLAB; and a number of case studies are also done to show how the tool works.
ContributorsKhorshidi, Maryam (Author) / Shah, Jami J. (Thesis advisor) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Gel, Esma (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Renewable portfolio standards prescribe for penetration of high amounts of re-newable energy sources (RES) that may change the structure of existing power systems. The load growth and changes in power flow caused by RES integration may result in re-quirements of new available transmission capabilities and upgrades of existing transmis-sion paths. Construction difficulties of new transmission lines can become a problem in certain locations. The increase of transmission line thermal ratings by reconductoring using High Temperature Low Sag (HTLS) conductors is a comparatively new technology introduced to transmission expansion. A special design permits HTLS conductors to operate at high temperatures (e.g., 200oC), thereby allowing passage of higher current. The higher temperature capability increases the steady state and emergency thermal ratings of the transmission line. The main disadvantage of HTLS technology is high cost. The high cost may place special emphasis on a thorough analysis of cost to benefit of HTLS technology im-plementation. Increased transmission losses in HTLS conductors due to higher current may be a disadvantage that can reduce the attractiveness of this method. Studies described in this thesis evaluate the expenditures for transmission line re-conductoring using HTLS and the consequent benefits obtained from the potential decrease in operating cost for thermally limited transmission systems. Studies performed consider the load growth and penetration of distributed renewable energy sources according to the renewable portfolio standards for power systems. An evaluation of payback period is suggested to assess the cost to benefit ratio of HTLS upgrades. The thesis also considers the probabilistic nature of transmission upgrades. The well-known Chebyshev inequality is discussed with an application to transmission up-grades. The Chebyshev inequality is proposed to calculate minimum payback period ob-tained from the upgrades of certain transmission lines. The cost to benefit evaluation of HTLS upgrades is performed using a 225 bus equivalent of the 2012 summer peak Arizona portion of the Western Electricity Coordi-nating Council (WECC).
ContributorsTokombayev, Askhat (Author) / Heydt, Gerald T. (Thesis advisor) / Sankar, Lalitha (Committee member) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Vehicles powered by electricity and alternative-fuels are becoming a more popular form of transportation since they have less of an environmental impact than standard gasoline vehicles. Unfortunately, their success is currently inhibited by the sparseness of locations where the vehicles can refuel as well as the fact that many of the vehicles have a range that is less than those powered by gasoline. These factors together create a "range anxiety" in drivers, which causes the drivers to worry about the utility of alternative-fuel and electric vehicles and makes them less likely to purchase these vehicles. For the new vehicle technologies to thrive it is critical that range anxiety is minimized and performance is increased as much as possible through proper routing and scheduling. In the case of long distance trips taken by individual vehicles, the routes must be chosen such that the vehicles take the shortest routes while not running out of fuel on the trip. When many vehicles are to be routed during the day, if the refueling stations have limited capacity then care must be taken to avoid having too many vehicles arrive at the stations at any time. If the vehicles that will need to be routed in the future are unknown then this problem is stochastic. For fleets of vehicles serving scheduled operations, switching to alternative-fuels requires ensuring the schedules do not cause the vehicles to run out of fuel. This is especially problematic since the locations where the vehicles may refuel are limited due to the technology being new. This dissertation covers three related optimization problems: routing a single electric or alternative-fuel vehicle on a long distance trip, routing many electric vehicles in a network where the stations have limited capacity and the arrivals into the system are stochastic, and scheduling fleets of electric or alternative-fuel vehicles with limited locations to refuel. Different algorithms are proposed to solve each of the three problems, of which some are exact and some are heuristic. The algorithms are tested on both random data and data relating to the State of Arizona.
ContributorsAdler, Jonathan D (Author) / Mirchandani, Pitu B. (Thesis advisor) / Askin, Ronald (Committee member) / Gel, Esma (Committee member) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Zhang, Muhong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The future grid will face challenges to meet an increased power demand by the consumers. Various solutions were studied to address this issue. One alternative to realize increased power flow in the grid is to use High Temperature Low Sag (HTLS) since it fulfills essential criteria of less sag and good material performance with temperature. HTLS conductors like Aluminum Conductor Composite Reinforced (ACCR) and Aluminum Conductor Carbon Composite (ACCC) are expected to face high operating temperatures of 150-200 degree Celsius in order to achieve the desired increased power flow. Therefore, it is imperative to characterize the material performance of these conductors with temperature. The work presented in this thesis addresses the characterization of carbon composite core based and metal matrix core based HTLS conductors. The thesis focuses on the study of variation of tensile strength of the carbon composite core with temperature and the level of temperature rise of the HTLS conductors due to fault currents cleared by backup protection. In this thesis, Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) was used to quantify the loss in storage modulus of carbon composite cores with temperature. It has been previously shown in literature that storage modulus is correlated to the tensile strength of the composite. Current temperature relationships of HTLS conductors were determined using the IEEE 738-2006 standard. Temperature rise of these conductors due to fault currents were also simulated. All simulations were performed using Microsoft Visual C++ suite. Tensile testing of metal matrix core was also performed. Results of DMA on carbon composite cores show that the storage modulus, hence tensile strength, decreases rapidly in the temperature range of intended use. DMA on composite cores subjected to heat treatment were conducted to investigate any changes in the variation of storage modulus curves. The experiments also indicates that carbon composites cores subjected to temperatures at or above 250 degree Celsius can cause permanent loss of mechanical properties including tensile strength. The fault current temperature analysis of carbon composite based conductors reveal that fault currents eventually cleared by backup protection in the event of primary protection failure can cause damage to fiber matrix interface.
ContributorsBanerjee, Koustubh (Author) / Gorur, Ravi (Committee member) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Accelerated life testing (ALT) is the process of subjecting a product to stress conditions (temperatures, voltage, pressure etc.) in excess of its normal operating levels to accelerate failures. Product failure typically results from multiple stresses acting on it simultaneously. Multi-stress factor ALTs are challenging as they increase the number of experiments due to the stress factor-level combinations resulting from the increased number of factors. Chapter 2 provides an approach for designing ALT plans with multiple stresses utilizing Latin hypercube designs that reduces the simulation cost without loss of statistical efficiency. A comparison to full grid and large-sample approximation methods illustrates the approach computational cost gain and flexibility in determining optimal stress settings with less assumptions and more intuitive unit allocations.
Implicit in the design criteria of current ALT designs is the assumption that the form of the acceleration model is correct. This is unrealistic assumption in many real-world problems. Chapter 3 provides an approach for ALT optimum design for model discrimination. We utilize the Hellinger distance measure between predictive distributions. The optimal ALT plan at three stress levels was determined and its performance was compared to good compromise plan, best traditional plan and well-known 4:2:1 compromise test plans. In the case of linear versus quadratic ALT models, the proposed method increased the test plan's ability to distinguish among competing models and provided better guidance as to which model is appropriate for the experiment.
Chapter 4 extends the approach of Chapter 3 to ALT sequential model discrimination. An initial experiment is conducted to provide maximum possible information with respect to model discrimination. The follow-on experiment is planned by leveraging the most current information to allow for Bayesian model comparison through posterior model probability ratios. Results showed that performance of plan is adversely impacted by the amount of censoring in the data, in the case of linear vs. quadratic model form at three levels of constant stress, sequential testing can improve model recovery rate by approximately 8% when data is complete, but no apparent advantage in adopting sequential testing was found in the case of right-censored data when censoring is in excess of a certain amount.
Implicit in the design criteria of current ALT designs is the assumption that the form of the acceleration model is correct. This is unrealistic assumption in many real-world problems. Chapter 3 provides an approach for ALT optimum design for model discrimination. We utilize the Hellinger distance measure between predictive distributions. The optimal ALT plan at three stress levels was determined and its performance was compared to good compromise plan, best traditional plan and well-known 4:2:1 compromise test plans. In the case of linear versus quadratic ALT models, the proposed method increased the test plan's ability to distinguish among competing models and provided better guidance as to which model is appropriate for the experiment.
Chapter 4 extends the approach of Chapter 3 to ALT sequential model discrimination. An initial experiment is conducted to provide maximum possible information with respect to model discrimination. The follow-on experiment is planned by leveraging the most current information to allow for Bayesian model comparison through posterior model probability ratios. Results showed that performance of plan is adversely impacted by the amount of censoring in the data, in the case of linear vs. quadratic model form at three levels of constant stress, sequential testing can improve model recovery rate by approximately 8% when data is complete, but no apparent advantage in adopting sequential testing was found in the case of right-censored data when censoring is in excess of a certain amount.
ContributorsNasir, Ehab (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Runger, George C. (Committee member) / Gel, Esma (Committee member) / Kao, Ming-Hung (Committee member) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
A new photovoltaic (PV) array power converter circuit is presented. The salient features of this inverter are: transformerless topology, grounded PV array, and only film capacitors. The motivations are to reduce cost, eliminate leakage ground currents, and improve reliability. The use of Silicon Carbide (SiC) transistors is the key enabling technology for this particular circuit to attain good efficiency.
Traditionally, grid connected PV inverters required a transformer for isolation and safety. The disadvantage of high frequency transformer based inverters is complexity and cost. Transformerless inverters have become more popular recently, although they can be challenging to implement because of possible high frequency currents through the PV array's stay capacitance to earth ground. Conventional PV inverters also typically utilize electrolytic capacitors for bulk power buffering. However such capacitors can be prone to decreased reliability.
The solution proposed here to solve these problems is a bi directional buck boost converter combined with half bridge inverters. This configuration enables grounding of the array's negative terminal and passive power decoupling with only film capacitors.
Several aspects of the proposed converter are discussed. First a literature review is presented on the issues to be addressed. The proposed circuit is then presented and examined in detail. This includes theory of operation, component selection, and control systems. An efficiency analysis is also conducted. Simulation results are then presented that show correct functionality. A hardware prototype is built and experiment results also prove the concept. Finally some further developments are mentioned.
As a summary of the research a new topology and control technique were developed. The resultant circuit is a high performance transformerless PV inverter with upwards of 97% efficiency.
Traditionally, grid connected PV inverters required a transformer for isolation and safety. The disadvantage of high frequency transformer based inverters is complexity and cost. Transformerless inverters have become more popular recently, although they can be challenging to implement because of possible high frequency currents through the PV array's stay capacitance to earth ground. Conventional PV inverters also typically utilize electrolytic capacitors for bulk power buffering. However such capacitors can be prone to decreased reliability.
The solution proposed here to solve these problems is a bi directional buck boost converter combined with half bridge inverters. This configuration enables grounding of the array's negative terminal and passive power decoupling with only film capacitors.
Several aspects of the proposed converter are discussed. First a literature review is presented on the issues to be addressed. The proposed circuit is then presented and examined in detail. This includes theory of operation, component selection, and control systems. An efficiency analysis is also conducted. Simulation results are then presented that show correct functionality. A hardware prototype is built and experiment results also prove the concept. Finally some further developments are mentioned.
As a summary of the research a new topology and control technique were developed. The resultant circuit is a high performance transformerless PV inverter with upwards of 97% efficiency.
ContributorsBreazeale, Lloyd C (Author) / Ayyanar, Raja (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Tylavsky, Daniel (Committee member) / Tsakalis, Konstantinos (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
t temperature (HST) and top-oil temperature (TOT) are reliable indicators of the insulation temperature. The objective of this project is to use thermal models to estimate the transformer's maximum dynamic loading capacity without violating the HST and TOT thermal limits set by the operator. In order to ensure the optimal loading, the temperature predictions of the thermal models need to be accurate. A number of transformer thermal models are available in the literature. In present practice, the IEEE Clause 7 model is used by the industry to make these predictions. However, a linear regression based thermal model has been observed to be more accurate than the IEEE model. These two models have been studied in this work.
This document presents the research conducted to discriminate between reliable and unreliable models with the help of certain metrics. This was done by first eyeballing the prediction performance and then evaluating a number of mathematical metrics. Efforts were made to recognize the cause behind an unreliable model. Also research was conducted to improve the accuracy of the performance of the existing models.
A new application, described in this document, has been developed to automate the process of building thermal models for multiple transformers. These thermal models can then be used for transformer dynamic loading.
This document presents the research conducted to discriminate between reliable and unreliable models with the help of certain metrics. This was done by first eyeballing the prediction performance and then evaluating a number of mathematical metrics. Efforts were made to recognize the cause behind an unreliable model. Also research was conducted to improve the accuracy of the performance of the existing models.
A new application, described in this document, has been developed to automate the process of building thermal models for multiple transformers. These thermal models can then be used for transformer dynamic loading.
ContributorsRao, Shruti Dwarkanath (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Thesis advisor) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014