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Description
Renewable energy has been a very hot topic in recent years due to the traditional energy crisis. Incentives that encourage the renewables have been established all over the world. Ordinary homeowners are also seeking ways to exploit renewable energy. In this thesis, residential PV system, wind turbine system and a

Renewable energy has been a very hot topic in recent years due to the traditional energy crisis. Incentives that encourage the renewables have been established all over the world. Ordinary homeowners are also seeking ways to exploit renewable energy. In this thesis, residential PV system, wind turbine system and a hybrid wind/solar system are all investigated. The solar energy received by the PV panels varies with many factors. The most essential one is the irradiance. As the PV panel been installed towards different orientations, the incident insolation received by the panel also will be different. The differing insolation corresponds to the different angles between the irradiance and the panel throughout the day. The result shows that for PV panels in the northern hemisphere, the ones facing south obtain the highest level insolation and thus generate the most electricity. However, with the two different electricity rate plans, flat rate plan and TOU (time of use) plan, the value of electricity that PV generates is different. For wind energy, the wind speed is the most significant variable to determine the generation of a wind turbine. Unlike solar energy, wind energy is much more regionally dependent. Wind resources vary between very close locations. As expected, the result shows that, larger wind speed leads to more electricity generation and thus shorter payback period. For the PV/wind hybrid system, two real cases are analyzed for Altamont and Midhill, CA. In this part, the impact of incentives, system cost and system size are considered. With a hybrid system, homeowners may choose different size combinations between PV and wind turbines. It turns out that for these two locations, the system with larger PV output always achieve a shorter payback period due to the lower cost. Even though, for a longer term, the system with a larger wind turbine in locations with excellent wind resources may lead to higher return on investment. Meanwhile, impacts of both wind and solar incentives (mainly utility rebates) are analyzed. At last, effects of the cost of both renewables are performed.
ContributorsAn, Wen (Author) / Holbert, Keith E. (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Tylavsky, Daniel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
In this thesis, an issue is post at the beginning, that there is limited experience in connecting a battery analytical model with a battery circuit model. Then it describes the process of creating a new battery circuit model which is referred to as the kinetic battery model. During this process,

In this thesis, an issue is post at the beginning, that there is limited experience in connecting a battery analytical model with a battery circuit model. Then it describes the process of creating a new battery circuit model which is referred to as the kinetic battery model. During this process, a new general equation is derived. The original equation in the kinetic battery model is only valid at a constant current rate, while the new equation can be used for not only constant current but also linear or nonlinear current. Following the new equation, a circuit representation is built based on the kinetic battery model. Then, by matching the two sets of differential equations of the two models together, the ability to connect the analytical model with the battery circuit model is found. To verify the new battery circuit model is built correctly, the new circuit model is implemented into PSpice simulation software to test the charging performance with constant current, and Matlab/Simulink is also employed to simulate a realistic battery charging process with two-stage charging method. The results have shown the new circuit model is available to be used in realistic scenarios. And because the kinetic battery model can describe different types of rechargeable batteries, the new circuit model is also capable to be used for various battery types.
ContributorsKong, Dexinghui (Author) / Holbert, Keith E. (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
Underground transmission cables in power systems are less likely to experience electrical faults, however, resulting outage times are much greater in the event that a failure does occur. Unlike overhead lines, underground cables are not self-healing from flashover events. The faulted section must be located and repaired before the line

Underground transmission cables in power systems are less likely to experience electrical faults, however, resulting outage times are much greater in the event that a failure does occur. Unlike overhead lines, underground cables are not self-healing from flashover events. The faulted section must be located and repaired before the line can be put back into service. Since this will often require excavation of the underground duct bank, the procedure to repair the faulted section is both costly and time consuming. These added complications are the prime motivators for developing accurate and reliable ratings for underground cable circuits.

This work will review the methods by which power ratings, or ampacity, for underground cables are determined and then evaluate those ratings by making comparison with measured data taken from an underground 69 kV cable, which is part of the Salt River Project (SRP) power subtransmission system. The process of acquiring, installing, and commissioning the temperature monitoring system is covered in detail as well. The collected data are also used to evaluate typical assumptions made when determining underground cable ratings such as cable hot-spot location and ambient temperatures.

Analysis results show that the commonly made assumption that the deepest portion of an underground power cable installation will be the hot-spot location does not always hold true. It is shown that distributed cable temperature measurements can be used to locate the proper line segment to be used for cable ampacity calculations.
ContributorsStowers, Travis (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
In this work a comparison has been made between the predictions from the models using both the present theory for the underground cable temperature prediction and the CYMCAP application and the field measurements to determine which, if any, models are capable of predicting the temperature and hotspot locations in an

In this work a comparison has been made between the predictions from the models using both the present theory for the underground cable temperature prediction and the CYMCAP application and the field measurements to determine which, if any, models are capable of predicting the temperature and hotspot locations in an installation where the power cable is not embedded with the optical fibers and, therefore, where the cable temperatures must be inferred from the temperature measurements made in nearby spare ducts. The temperature measurements were collected from the underground 69 kV cable at the Brandow-Pickrell installation, which is a part of Salt River Project’s power sub-transmission system. The model development and the results are explained in detail. Results from the model developed have been compared and the factors affecting the cable temperature are highlighted.

Once the models were developed, it was observed that the earth surface temperature above the installation, solar radiation and other external factors such as underlying water lines, drain pipes, etc. play a key role in heating up or cooling down the power cables. It was also determined that the hotspot location in the power cable in the main duct was the same as the hotspot location in the spare duct inside the same installation.

It was also observed that the CYMCAP model had its limitations when the earth surface temperature variations were modeled in the software as the software only allows the earth’s ambient temperature to be modeled as a constant; further, results from the MATLAB model were more in line with the present theory of underground power cable temperature prediction. However, simulation results from both the MATLAB and CYMCAP model showed deviation from the measured data. It was also observed that the spare duct temperatures in this particular underground installation seemed to be affected by external factors such as solar radiation, underlying water lines, gas lines etc. which cannot be modeled in CYMCAP.
ContributorsSharma, Aman (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Thesis advisor) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
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Description
Concrete is relatively brittle, and its tensile strength is typically only about one-tenth of its compressive strength. Regular concrete is therefore normally uses reinforcement steel bars to increase the tensile strength. It is becoming increasingly popular to use random distributed fibers as reinforcement and polymeric fibers is once such kind.

Concrete is relatively brittle, and its tensile strength is typically only about one-tenth of its compressive strength. Regular concrete is therefore normally uses reinforcement steel bars to increase the tensile strength. It is becoming increasingly popular to use random distributed fibers as reinforcement and polymeric fibers is once such kind. In the case of polymeric fibers, due to hydrophobicity and lack of any chemical bond between the fiber and matrix, the weak interface zone limits the ability of the fibers to effectively carry the load that is on the matrix phase. Depending on the fiber’s surface asperity, shape, chemical nature, and mechanical bond characteristic of the load transfer between matrix and fiber can be altered so that the final composite can be improved. These modifications can be carried out by means of thermal treatment, mechanical surface modifications, or chemical changes The objective of this study is to measure and document the effect of gamma ray irradiation on the mechanical properties of macro polymeric fibers. The objective is to determine the mechanical properties of macro-synthetic fibers and develop guidelines for treatment and characterization that allow for potential positive changes due to exposure to irradiation. Fibers are exposed to various levels of ionizing radiation and the tensile, interface and performance in a mortar matrix are documented. Uniaxial tensile tests were performed on irradiated fibers to study fiber strength and failure pattern. SEM tests were carried out in order to study the surface characteristic and effect of different radiation dose on polymeric fiber. The interaction of the irradiated fiber with the cement composite was studied by a series of quasi-static pullout test for a specific embedded length. As a final task, flexural tests were carried out for different irradiated fibers to sum up the investigation. An average increase of 13% in the stiffness of the fiber was observed for 5 kGy of radiation. Flexural tests showed an average increase of 181% in the Req3 value and 102 % in the toughness of the sample was observed for 5 kGy of dose.
ContributorsTiwari, Sanchay Sushil (Author) / Mobasher, Barzin (Thesis advisor) / Neithalath, Narayanan (Thesis advisor) / Dharmarajan, Subramaniam (Committee member) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Description
Alternative sources of power generation interconnected at the transmission level have witnessed an increase in investment in the last few years. On the other hand, when the power systems are being operated close to their limits, power system operators and engineers face the challenge of ensuring a safe and reliable

Alternative sources of power generation interconnected at the transmission level have witnessed an increase in investment in the last few years. On the other hand, when the power systems are being operated close to their limits, power system operators and engineers face the challenge of ensuring a safe and reliable supply of electricity. In such a scenario, the reliability of the transmission system is crucial as it ensures secure transfer of uninterrupted power from the generating sources to the load centers. This thesis is aimed at ensuring the reliability of the transmission system from two perspectives. First, this work monitors power system disturbances such as unintentional islanding to ensure prompt detection and implementation of restorative actions and thus, minimizes the extent of damage. Secondly, it investigates power system disturbances such as transmission line outages through reliability evaluation and outage analysis in order to prevent reoccurrence of similar failures.

In this thesis, a passive Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS) based islanding detection scheme called Cumulative Sum of Change in Voltage Phase Angle Difference (CUSPAD) is proposed and tested on a modified 18 bus test system and a modified IEEE 118 bus system with various wind energy penetration levels. Comparative analysis between accuracies of the proposed approach and the conventional relative angle difference approach in presence of measurement errors indicate a superior performance of the former. Results obtained from the proposed approach also reveal that power system disturbances such as unintentional island formations are accurately detected in wind integrated transmission systems.

Quantitative evaluation of the transmission system reliability aids in the assessment of the existing system performance. Further, post-mortem analysis of failures is an important step in minimizing recurrent failures. Reliability evaluation and outage analysis of transmission line outages carried out in this thesis have revealed chronological trends in the system performance. A new index called Outage Impact Index (OII) is also been proposed which can identify and prioritize outages based on their severity. This would serve as a baselining index for assessing and monitoring future transmission system performances and will facilitate implementation of reliability improvement measures if found necessary.
ContributorsBarkakati, Meghna (Author) / Pal, Anamitra (Thesis advisor) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Weng, Yang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The lifetime of a transformer is essentially determined by the life of its insulation

system which is a time function of the temperature defined by its thermal class. A large

quantity of studies and international standards have been published indicating the

possibility of increasing the thermal class of cellulose based materials when immersed

in

The lifetime of a transformer is essentially determined by the life of its insulation

system which is a time function of the temperature defined by its thermal class. A large

quantity of studies and international standards have been published indicating the

possibility of increasing the thermal class of cellulose based materials when immersed

in natural esters which are superior to traditional mineral oils. Thus, a transformer

having thermally upgraded Kraft paper and natural ester dielectric fluid can be

classified as a high temperature insulation system. Such a transformer can also

operate at temperatures 20C higher than its mineral oil equivalent, holding additional

loading capability without losing life expectancy. This thesis focuses on evaluating

the use of this feature as an additional capability for enhancing the loadability and/or

extending the life of the distribution transformers for the Phoenix based utility - SRP

using FR3 brand natural ester dielectric fluid.

Initially, different transformer design options to use this additional loadability

are compared allowing utilities to select an optimal FR3 filled transformer design

for their application. Yearlong load profiles for SRP distribution transformers, sized

conventionally on peak load demands, are analyzed for their oil temperatures, winding

temperatures and loss of insulation life. It is observed that these load profiles can be

classified into two types: 1) Type-1 profiles with high peak and high average loads,

and 2) Type-2 profiles with comparatively low peak and low average load.

For the Type 1 load profiles, use of FR3 natural ester fluid with the same nominal

rating showed 7.4 times longer life expectation. For the Type 2 load profiles, a new

way of sizing ester filled transformers based on both average and peak load, instead of

only peak load, called “Sustainable Peak Loading” showed smaller size transformers

can handle the same yearly peak loads while maintaining superior insulation lifespan.

It is additionally possible to have reduction in the total energy dissipation over the

year. A net present value cost savings up to US$1200 per transformer quantifying

benefits of the life extension and the total ownership cost savings up to 30% for

sustainable peak loading showed SRP distribution transformers can gain substantial

economic savings when the distribution transformer fleet is replaced with FR3 ester

filled units.
ContributorsVaidya, Chinmay Vishwas (Author) / Holbert, Keith E. (Thesis advisor) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Pal, Anamitra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Description
Transmission line parameters play an important role in state estimation, dynamic line rating, and fault analysis. Because of this, several methods have been proposed in the literature for line parameter estimation, especially using synchrophasor data. However, success of most prior research has been demonstrated using purely synthetic data. A synthetic

Transmission line parameters play an important role in state estimation, dynamic line rating, and fault analysis. Because of this, several methods have been proposed in the literature for line parameter estimation, especially using synchrophasor data. However, success of most prior research has been demonstrated using purely synthetic data. A synthetic dataset does not have the problems encountered with real data, such as invariance of measurements and realistic field noise. Therefore, the algorithms developed using synthetic datasets may not be as effective when used in practice. On the other hand, the true values of the line parameters are unknown and therefore the algorithms cannot be directly implemented on real data. A multi-stage test procedure is developed in this work to circumvent this problem.

In this thesis, two popular algorithms, namely, moving-window total least squares (MWTLS) and recursive Kalman filter (RKF) are applied on real data in multiple stages. In the first stage, the algorithms are tested on a purely synthetic dataset. This is followed by testing done on pseudo-synthetic datasets generated using real PMU data. In the final stage, the algorithms are implemented on the real PMU data obtained from a local utility. The results show that in the context of the given problem, RKF has better performance than MWTLS. Furthermore, to improve the performance of RKF on real data, ASPEN data are used to calculate the initial estimates. The estimation results show that the RKF algorithm can reliably estimate the sequence impedances, using ASPEN data as a starting condition. The estimation procedure is repeated over different time periods and the corresponding results are presented.

Finally, the significance of data drop-outs and its impact on the use of parameter estimates for real-time power system applications, such as state estimation and dynamic line rating, is discussed. To address the problem (of data drop-outs), an auto regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model is implemented. The ability of this model to predict the variations in sequence impedances is demonstrated.
ContributorsMansani, Prashanth Kumar (Author) / Pal, Anamitra (Thesis advisor) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Tylavsky, Daniel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Description
Non-volatile memory (NVM) has become a staple in the everyday life of consumers. NVM manifests inside cell phones, laptops, and most recently, wearable tech such as smart watches. NAND Flash has been an excellent solution to conditions requiring fast, compact NVM. Current technology nodes are nearing the physical limits of

Non-volatile memory (NVM) has become a staple in the everyday life of consumers. NVM manifests inside cell phones, laptops, and most recently, wearable tech such as smart watches. NAND Flash has been an excellent solution to conditions requiring fast, compact NVM. Current technology nodes are nearing the physical limits of scaling, preventing flash from improving. To combat the limitations of flash and to appease consumer demand for progressively faster and denser NVM, new technologies are needed. One possible candidate for the replacement of NAND Flash is programmable metallization cells (PMC). PMC are a type of resistive memory, meaning that they do not rely on charge storage to maintain a logic state. Depending on their application, it is possible that devices containing NVM will be exposed to harsh radiation environments. As part of the process for developing a novel memory technology, it is important to characterize the effects irradiation has on the functionality of the devices.

This thesis characterizes the effects that ionizing γ-ray irradiation has on the retention of the programmed resistive state of a PMC. The PMC devices tested used Ge30Se70 doped with Ag as the solid electrolyte layer and were fabricated by the thesis author in a Class 100 clean room. Individual device tiles were wire bonded into ceramic packages and tested in a biased and floating contact scenario.

The first scenario presented shows that PMC devices are capable of retaining their programmed state up to the maximum exposed total ionizing dose (TID) of 3.1 Mrad(Si). In this first scenario, the contacts of the PMC devices were left floating during exposure. The second scenario tested shows that the PMC devices are capable of retaining their state until the maximum TID of 10.1 Mrad(Si) was reached. The contacts in the second scenario were biased, with a 50 mV read voltage applied to the anode contact. Analysis of the results show that Ge30Se70 PMC are ionizing radiation tolerant and can retain a programmed state to a higher TID than NAND Flash memory.
ContributorsTaggart, Jennifer Lynn (Author) / Barnaby, Hugh (Thesis advisor) / Kozicki, Michael (Committee member) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
The reduced availability of 3He is a motivation for developing alternative neutron detectors. 6Li-enriched CLYC (Cs2LiYCl6), a scintillator, is a promising candidate to replace 3He. The neutron and gamma ray signals from CLYC have different shapes due to the slower decay of neutron pulses. Some of the well-known pulse shape

The reduced availability of 3He is a motivation for developing alternative neutron detectors. 6Li-enriched CLYC (Cs2LiYCl6), a scintillator, is a promising candidate to replace 3He. The neutron and gamma ray signals from CLYC have different shapes due to the slower decay of neutron pulses. Some of the well-known pulse shape discrimination techniques are charge comparison method, pulse gradient method and frequency gradient method. In the work presented here, we have applied a normalized cross correlation (NCC) approach to real neutron and gamma ray pulses produced by exposing CLYC scintillators to a mixed radiation environment generated by 137Cs, 22Na, 57Co and 252Cf/AmBe at different event rates. The cross correlation analysis produces distinctive results for measured neutron pulses and gamma ray pulses when they are cross correlated with reference neutron and/or gamma templates. NCC produces good separation between neutron and gamma rays at low (< 100 kHz) to mid event rate (< 200 kHz). However, the separation disappears at high event rate (> 200 kHz) because of pileup, noise and baseline shift. This is also confirmed by observing the pulse shape discrimination (PSD) plots and figure of merit (FOM) of NCC. FOM is close to 3, which is good, for low event rate but rolls off significantly along with the increase in the event rate and reaches 1 at high event rate. Future efforts are required to reduce the noise by using better hardware system, remove pileup and detect the NCC shapes of neutron and gamma rays using advanced techniques.
ContributorsChandhran, Premkumar (Author) / Holbert, Keith E. (Thesis advisor) / Spanias, Andreas (Committee member) / Ogras, Umit Y. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015