Special issue on selected papers from EVER’09

Citation

Masmoudi, A. (2011), "Special issue on selected papers from EVER’09", COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol. 30 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/compel.2011.17430aaa.001

Special issue on selected papers from EVER’09

Article Type: Preface From: COMPEL: The International Journal for Computation and Mathematics in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Volume 30, Issue 1

Hosted by the Principality of Monaco, the Fourth International Conference and Exhibition on Ecological Vehicles and Renewable Energies (EVER’09, March 24-27, 2009), was a forum of specialists coming from both universities and industries, involved in R&D projects in the area of ecological vehicles or of renewable energies or of both. They have had the opportunity to share their scientific, technical, business, and social experiences with other attendees coming from more than 35 countries, through the presentation and the discussion of their recent works in 19 sessions scheduled in the final program of EVER’09.

This special issue of the International Journal for Computation and Mathematics in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (COMPEL) includes extended and improved versions of a selection of 22 papers among 96 presented during EVER’09. Following its resubmission, each selected paper has been the subject of a re-review process involving at least two specialists. The topics of the published papers cover almost all fields of electric power engineering including electric machines, static converters, and power systems, applied to automotive as well as to renewable energy systems.

Until the 1970s, the evolution of electric machines was founded upon well-established laws. Of particular interest are Ampere’s law, Faraday’s law, Lorentz force and, in more general terms, Maxwell’s equations. Given the accumulated experience in the field of electric machines, it is quite commonly believed that this is a mature topic with little scope for innovation. In recent years, this statement has been continuously confounded by the emergence of a new era of electric machine technology based on the principle that the best machine design is the one that simply produces the optimum match between the machine and the associated static converter, leading to the so-called “converter-fed machines”.

Within this trend, concentrated winding fractional-slot synchronous permanent magnet (PM) machines have been gaining a lot of interest over the last few years. This is due to several advantages including high power densities, high efficiencies, short end turns, high slot fill factor especially when coupled with segmented stator structures, low cogging torque, wide flux-weakening range, and high fault-tolerance capability. Different topologies with inner or outer rotors and with surface-mounted or interior PMs are under investigation. These machines are presently given an increasing attention in propulsion applications. The theme aimed at converter-fed machines has been the subject of two papers dealing with fundamentals such as the reluctance network of a transverse flux PM machine including the saturation effect with emphasis on leakage fluxes, and the assessment of magnetic forces in a dual stator induction machine with the modelling of the hysteresis phenomenon accounted for.

Considered as a state of the art topic, adjustable speed wind generating systems acting alone or assisted by a second energy source, yielding the so-called “hybrid renewable energy systems” are intensively investigated in this special issue. The papers here cover a wide spectrum of problems including: modeling and control, steady-state stability and characteristics investigation, energy management, and stochastic dynamic optimization of wind energy converters.

The third topic treated in this special issue is devoted to the design and control of static converters particularly those integrated in multi-source systems such as microgrids, under autonomous and grid- connected operations. Accounting for the current trend focused towards variable speed power generating systems, the grid-interfacing is achieved by AC-DC-AC converters whose control, from both sides under unbalanced and distorted voltage scenarios, represent a crucial stability issue. Beyond AC topologies, DC/DC converters are regaining interest in railway applications as well as in microgrids.

Finally, the last paper proposes an aid for teaching the basis of hybrid propulsion systems with emphasis on their electric drive unit (EDU). Within the stimulation of the innovative potentialities of the students, and for the sake of the optimization of the EDU, two approaches to extend the flux weakening range considering the works of El-Refaie et al. on one hand, and to improve the cost-effectiveness and the compactness using the results patented by Ben Rhouma et al. on the other hand, are described and applied to a real-life case study.

I would like to congratulate his Excellency Bernard Fautrier, Plenipotentiary Minister of Monaco, and General Chairman of EVER’09, for his inestimable support and his valuable recommendations. I would like to express my truthful acknowledgments to Professor Jan K. Sykulski, the Editor-in-Chief of COMPEL, who has supported this special issue from its launch until its publication. My acknowledgments are also conveyed to the staff of Emerald Group Publishing Limited, especially Dr Harry Colson, Publisher (Emerald Engineering).

I should say that EVER’09 was a great success thanks to the efforts all members of the local organizing committee especially its chairman Mrs Ariane Favaloro to whom I would like to express my sincere gratitude and my deep respect.

Ahmed MasmoudiGuest Editor