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Article
Publication date: 19 December 2022

Mohammad Fathi, Roya Amjadifard, Farshad Eshghi and Manoochehr Kelarestaghi

Photovoltaic (PV) systems are experiencing exponential growth due to environmental concerns, unlimited and ubiquitous solar energy, and starting-to-make-sense panel costs…

Abstract

Purpose

Photovoltaic (PV) systems are experiencing exponential growth due to environmental concerns, unlimited and ubiquitous solar energy, and starting-to-make-sense panel costs. Alongside designing more efficient solar panels, installing solar trackers and special circuitry for optimizing power delivery to the load according to a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm are other ways of increasing efficiency. However, it is critical for any efficiency increase to account for the power consumption of any amendments. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a novel tracker while using MPPT to boost the PV system's actual efficiency accounting for the involved costs.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposition is an experimental pneumatic dual-axis solar tracker using light-dependent resistor (LDR) sensors. Due to its embedded energy storage, the pneumatic tracker offers a low duty-cycle operation leading to tracking energy conservation, fewer maintenance needs and scalability potential. While MPPT assures maximum load power delivery, the solar PV's actual delivered power is calculated for the first time, accounting for the solar tracking and MPPT power costs.

Findings

The experiments' results show an increase of 37.6% in total and 35.3% in actual power production for the proposed solar tracking system compared to the fixed panel system, with an MPPT efficiency of 90%. Thus, the pneumatic tracking system offers low tracking-energy consumption and good actual power efficiency. Also, the newly proposed pneumatic stimulant can significantly simplify the tracking mechanism and benefit from several advantages that come along with it.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work proposes, for the first time, a single-motor pneumatic dual-axis tracker with less implementation cost, less frequent operation switching and scalability potential, to be developed in future works. Also, the pneumatic proposal delivers high actual power efficiency for the first time to be addressed.

Details

World Journal of Engineering, vol. 21 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1708-5284

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 March 2024

Naseer Khan, Zeeshan Gohar, Faisal Khan and Faisal Mehmood

This study aims to offer a hybrid stand-alone system for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations (CS), an emerging power scheme due to the availability of renewable and…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to offer a hybrid stand-alone system for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations (CS), an emerging power scheme due to the availability of renewable and environment-friendly energy sources. This paper presents the analysis of a photovoltaic (PV) with an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) algorithm, solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and a battery storage scheme incorporated for EV CS in a stand-alone mode. In previous studies, either the hydrogen fuel of SOFC or the irradiance is controlled using artificial neural network. These parameters are not controlled simultaneously using an ANFIS-based approach. The ANFIS-based stand-alone hybrid system controlling both the fuel flow of SOFC and the irradiance of PV is discussed in this paper.

Design/methodology/approach

The ANFIS algorithm provides an efficient estimation of maximum power (MP) to the nonlinear voltage–current characteristics of a PV, integrated with a direct current–direct current (DC–DC) converter to boost output voltage up to 400 V. The issue of fuel starvation in SOFC due to load transients is also mitigated using an ANFIS-based fuel flow regulator, which robustly provides fuel, i.e. hydrogen per necessity. Furthermore, to ensure uninterrupted power to the CS, PV is integrated with a SOFC array, and a battery storage bank is used as a backup in the current scenario. A power management system efficiently shares power among the aforesaid sources.

Findings

A comprehensive simulation test bed for a stand-alone power system (PV cells and SOFC) is developed in MATLAB/Simulink. The adaptability and robustness of the proposed control paradigm are investigated through simulation results in a stand-alone hybrid power system test bed.

Originality/value

The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the ANFIS algorithm in a stand-alone hybrid power system scheme.

Details

World Journal of Engineering, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1708-5284

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 March 2024

Shahin Alipour Bonab, Alireza Sadeghi and Mohammad Yazdani-Asrami

The ionization of the air surrounding the phase conductor in high-voltage transmission lines results in a phenomenon known as the Corona effect. To avoid this, Corona rings are…

Abstract

Purpose

The ionization of the air surrounding the phase conductor in high-voltage transmission lines results in a phenomenon known as the Corona effect. To avoid this, Corona rings are used to dampen the electric field imposed on the insulator. The purpose of this study is to present a fast and intelligent surrogate model for determination of the electric field imposed on the surface of a 120 kV composite insulator, in presence of the Corona ring.

Design/methodology/approach

Usually, the structural design parameters of the Corona ring are selected through an optimization procedure combined with some numerical simulations such as finite element method (FEM). These methods are slow and computationally expensive and thus, extremely reducing the speed of optimization problems. In this paper, a novel surrogate model was proposed that could calculate the maximum electric field imposed on a ceramic insulator in a 120 kV line. The surrogate model was created based on the different scenarios of height, radius and inner radius of the Corona ring, as the inputs of the model, while the maximum electric field on the body of the insulator was considered as the output.

Findings

The proposed model was based on artificial intelligence techniques that have high accuracy and low computational time. Three methods were used here to develop the AI-based surrogate model, namely, Cascade forward neural network (CFNN), support vector regression and K-nearest neighbors regression. The results indicated that the CFNN has the highest accuracy among these methods with 99.81% R-squared and only 0.045468 root mean squared error while the testing time is less than 10 ms.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, a surrogate method is proposed for the prediction of the maximum electric field imposed on the high voltage insulators in the presence Corona ring which is faster than any conventional finite element method.

Details

World Journal of Engineering, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1708-5284

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 6 July 2023

Zakaria Mohamed Salem Elbarbary, Ahmed A. Alaifi, Saad Fahed Alqahtani, Irshad Mohammad Shaik, Sunil Kumar Gupta and Vijayakumar Gali

Switching power converters for photovoltaic (PV) applications with high gain are rapidly expanding. To obtain better voltage gain, low switch stress, low ripple and cost-effective…

442

Abstract

Purpose

Switching power converters for photovoltaic (PV) applications with high gain are rapidly expanding. To obtain better voltage gain, low switch stress, low ripple and cost-effective converters, researchers are developing several topologies.

Design/methodology/approach

It was decided to use the particle swarm optimization approach for this system in order to compute the precise PI controller gain parameters under steady state and dynamic changing circumstances. A high-gain q- ZS boost converter is used as an intermittent converter between a PV and brushless direct current (BLDC) motor to attain maximum power point tracking, which also reduces the torque ripples. A MATLAB/Simulink environment has been used to build and test the positive output quadratic boost high gain converters (PQBHGC)-1, PQBHGC-8, PQBHGC-4 and PQBHGC-3 topologies to analyse their effectiveness in PV-driven BLDC motor applications. The simulation results show that the PQBHGC-3 topology is effective in comparison with other HG cell DC–DC converters in terms of efficiency, reduced ripples, etc. which is most suitable for PV-driven BLDC applications.

Findings

The simulation results have showed that the PQBHGC-3 gives better performance with minimum voltage ripple of 2V and current ripple of 0.4A which eventually reduces the ripples in the torque in a BLDC motor. Also, the efficiency for the suggested PQBHGC-3 for PV-based BLDC applications is the best with 99%.

Originality/value

This study is the first of its kind comparing the different topologies of PQBHGC-1, PQBHGC-8, PQBHGC-4 and PQBHGC-3 topologies to analyse their effectiveness in PV-driven BLDC motor applications. This study suggests that the PQBHGC-3 topology is most suitable in PV-driven BLDC applications.

Details

Frontiers in Engineering and Built Environment, vol. 4 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2634-2499

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 March 2024

Ignacio Jesús Álvarez Gariburo, Hector Sarnago and Oscar Lucia

Induction heating processes need to adapt to complex geometries or variable processes that require a high degree of flexibility in the induction heating setup. This is usually…

Abstract

Purpose

Induction heating processes need to adapt to complex geometries or variable processes that require a high degree of flexibility in the induction heating setup. This is usually done using complex inductors or adaptable resonant tanks, which leads to costly and constrained implementations. This paper aims to propose a multi-level, versatile power supply able to adapt the output to the required induction heating process.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper proposes a versatile multilevel topology able to generate versatile output waveforms. The methodology followed includes simulation of the proposed architecture, design of the power electronics, control and magnetic elements and laboratory tests after building a 10-level prototype.

Findings

The proposed converter has been designed and tested using an experimental prototype. The designed generator is able to operate at 1 kVpp and 100 A at 250 kHz, proving the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Originality/value

The proposed converter enables versatile waveform generation, enabling advanced tests and processes on induction heating system. The proposed system allows for multifrequency generation using a single inductor and converter, or advanced tests for inductive and capacitive components used on induction heating systems. Unlike previous multifrequency proposals, the proposed generator enables a significantly improved versatility in terms of operational frequency and amplitude in a single converter.

Details

COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering , vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0332-1649

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 March 2024

Mouna Zerzeri, Intissar Moussa and Adel Khedher

The purpose of this paper aims to design a robust wind turbine emulator (WTE) based on a three-phase induction motor (3PIM).

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper aims to design a robust wind turbine emulator (WTE) based on a three-phase induction motor (3PIM).

Design/methodology/approach

The 3PIM is driven by a soft voltage source inverter (VSI) controlled by a specific space vector modulation. By adjusting the appropriate vector sequence selection, the desired VSI output voltage allows a real wind turbine speed emulation in the laboratory, taking into account the wind profile, static and dynamic behaviors and parametric variations for theoretical and then experimental analysis. A Mexican hat profile and a sinusoidal profile are therefore used as the wind speed system input to highlight the electrical, mechanical and electromagnetic system response.

Findings

The simulation results, based on relative error data, show that the proposed reactive power control method effectively estimates the flux and the rotor time constant, thus ensuring an accurate trajectory tracking of the wind speed for the wind emulation application.

Originality/value

The proposed architecture achieves its results through the use of mathematical theory and WTE topology combine with an online adaptive estimator and Lyapunov stability adaptation control methods. These approaches are particularly relevant for low-cost or low-power alternative current (AC) motor drives in the field of renewable energy emulation. It has the advantage of eliminating the need for expensive and unreliable position transducers, thereby increasing the emulator drive life. A comparative analysis was also carried out to highlight the online adaptive estimator fast response time and accuracy.

Details

COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering , vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0332-1649

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 October 2023

Omotayo Farai, Nicole Metje, Carl Anthony, Ali Sadeghioon and David Chapman

Wireless sensor networks (WSN), as a solution for buried water pipe monitoring, face a new set of challenges compared to traditional application for above-ground infrastructure…

Abstract

Purpose

Wireless sensor networks (WSN), as a solution for buried water pipe monitoring, face a new set of challenges compared to traditional application for above-ground infrastructure monitoring. One of the main challenges for underground WSN deployment is the limited range (less than 3 m) at which reliable wireless underground communication can be achieved using radio signal propagation through the soil. To overcome this challenge, the purpose of this paper is to investigate a new approach for wireless underground communication using acoustic signal propagation along a buried water pipe.

Design/methodology/approach

An acoustic communication system was developed based on the requirements of low cost (tens of pounds at most), low power supply capacity (in the order of 1 W-h) and miniature (centimetre scale) size for a wireless communication node. The developed system was further tested along a buried steel pipe in poorly graded SAND and a buried medium density polyethylene (MDPE) pipe in well graded SAND.

Findings

With predicted acoustic attenuation of 1.3 dB/m and 2.1 dB/m along the buried steel and MDPE pipes, respectively, reliable acoustic communication is possible up to 17 m for the buried steel pipe and 11 m for the buried MDPE pipe.

Research limitations/implications

Although an important first step, more research is needed to validate the acoustic communication system along a wider water distribution pipe network.

Originality/value

This paper shows the possibility of achieving reliable wireless underground communication along a buried water pipe (especially non-metallic material ones) using low-frequency acoustic propagation along the pipe wall.

Details

International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, vol. 20 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1742-7371

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 March 2024

Zeyu Xing, Tachia Chin, Jing Huang, Mirko Perano and Valerio Temperini

The ongoing paradigm shift in the energy sector holds paramount implications for the realization of the sustainable development goals, encompassing critical domains such as…

Abstract

Purpose

The ongoing paradigm shift in the energy sector holds paramount implications for the realization of the sustainable development goals, encompassing critical domains such as resource optimization, environmental stewardship and workforce opportunities. Concurrently, this transformative trajectory within the power sector possesses a dual-edged nature; it may ameliorate certain challenges while accentuating others. In light of the burgeoning research stream on open innovation, this study aims to examine the intricate dynamics of knowledge-based industry-university-research networking, with an overarching objective to elucidate and calibrate the equilibrium of ambidextrous innovation within power systems.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors scrutinize the role of different innovation organizations in three innovation models: ambidextrous, exploitative and exploratory, and use a multiobjective decision analysis method-entropy weight TOPSIS. The research was conducted within the sphere of the power industry, and the authors mined data from the widely used PatSnap database.

Findings

Results show that the breadth of knowledge search and the strength of an organization’s direct relationships are crucial for ambidextrous innovation, with research institutions having the highest impact. In contrast, for exploitative innovation, depth of knowledge search, the number of R&D patents and the number of innovative products are paramount, with universities playing the most significant role. For exploratory innovation, the depth of knowledge search and the quality of two-mode network relations are vital, with research institutions yielding the best effect. Regional analysis reveals Beijing as the primary hub for ambidextrous and exploratory innovation organizations, while Jiangsu leads for exploitative innovation.

Practical implications

The study offers valuable implications to cope with the dynamic state of ambidextrous innovation performance of the entire power system. In light of the findings, the dynamic state of ambidextrous innovation performance within the power system can be adeptly managed. By emphasizing a balance between exploratory and exploitative strategies, stakeholders are better positioned to respond to evolving challenges and opportunities. Thus, the study offers pivotal guidance to ensure sustained adaptability and growth in the power sector’s innovation landscape.

Originality/value

The primary originality is to extend and refine the theoretical understanding of ambidextrous innovation within power systems. By integrating several theoretical frameworks, including social network theory, knowledge-based theory and resource-based theory, the authors enrich the theoretical landscape of power system ambidextrous innovation. Also, this inclusive examination of two-mode network structures, including the interplay between knowledge and cooperation networks, unveils the intricate interdependencies between these networks and the ambidextrous innovation of power systems. This approach significantly widens the theoretical parameters of innovation network research.

Details

Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1367-3270

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 February 2024

Rizk Mostafa Shalaby and Mohamed Saad

The purpose of the present work is to study the impacts of rapid cooling and Tb rare-earth additions on the structural, thermal and mechanical behavior of Bi–0.5Ag lead-free…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the present work is to study the impacts of rapid cooling and Tb rare-earth additions on the structural, thermal and mechanical behavior of Bi–0.5Ag lead-free solder for high-temperature applications.

Design/methodology/approach

Effect of rapid solidification processing on structural, thermal and mechanical properties of Bi-Ag lead-free solder reinforced Tb rare-earth element.

Findings

The obtained results indicated that the microstructure consists of rhombohedral Bi-rich phase and Ag99.5Bi0.5 intermetallic compound (IMC). The addition of Tb could effectively reduce the onset and melting point. The elastic modulus of Tb-containing solders was enhanced to about 90% at 0.5 Tb. The higher elastic modulus may be attributed to solid solution strengthening effect, solubility extension, microstructure refinement and precipitation hardening of uniform distribution Ag99.5Bi0.5 IMC particles which can reasonably modify the microstructure, as well as inhibit the segregation and hinder the motion of dislocations.

Originality/value

It is recommended that the lead-free Bi-0.5Ag-0.5Tb solder be a candidate instead of common solder alloy (Sn-37Pb) for high temperature and high performance applications.

Details

Soldering & Surface Mount Technology, vol. 36 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0954-0911

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 February 2024

José Carlos Pereira de Morais, Nelson Castro Neves, Luís Abranches Soveral and João Lima

There is a growing urgent concern in involving higher education institutions (HEIs) towards an international effort in implementing a more suitable role as conductors of…

Abstract

Purpose

There is a growing urgent concern in involving higher education institutions (HEIs) towards an international effort in implementing a more suitable role as conductors of sustainable development. This paper/study aims to present the application of light emiting diode (LED) technology in an HEI assuming technology innovation as part of a larger institutional innovation management strategy addressing multiple dimensions in sustainability.

Design/methodology/approach

Investments in LED technology are analyzed for their impact on consumption results and quantitative comparisons between 2008 and 2022 are impaired with detailed information on the types of luminaires and the amount of installed energy.

Findings

The collected data shows a clear economic advantage of using LED technology, and the results subsidize institutional planning, considering not only ongoing technological innovation, but also educational components and community involvement in the organization sustainability strategy.

Research limitations/implications

The study is limited to a specific HEI and further comparative research should be carried out.

Practical implications

A holistic approach on sustainability objectives encourages further investment in environmental-friendly technology, example to other HEIs.

Social implications

The strategic vision of innovation is confirmed with the involvement of the community, at various levels, such as the academic community, local community, scientific international community.

Originality/value

This study addresses the lack of examples in the literature of structural planning and management systems that see sustainability as a strategy built in HEIs. The elaboration of an environmental sustainability plan places environmental sustainability at the confluence of themes such as education, investigation, use of natural resources, waste separation. For each topic are listed measures, actions, environment improvements, institution improvements and their results.

Details

International Journal of Innovation Science, vol. 16 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-2223

Keywords

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