Development of a Medium Voltage, High Power, High Frequency Four-Port Solid State Transformer

The power and voltage levels of renewable energy resources is growing with the evolution of the power electronics and switching module technologies.For that,the need for the development of a compact and highly efficient solid-state transformer is becoming a critical task in-order to integrate the current AC grid with the new renewable energy systems.The objective of this paper is to present the design,implementation,and testing of a compact multi-port solid-state transformer for microgrid integration applications.The proposed system has a four-port transformer and four converters connected to the ports.The transformer has four windings integrated on a single common core.Thus,it can integrate different renewable energy resources and energy storage systems.Each port has a rated power of 25 kW,and the switching frequency is pushed to 50 k Hz.The ports are chosen to represent a realistic industrial microgrid model consisting of grid,energy storage system,photovoltaic system,and load.The grid port is designed to operate at 4.16 k VAC corresponding to 7.2 kV DC bus voltage,while the other three ports operate at 500 VDC.Moreover,the grid,energy storage and photovoltaic ports are active ports with dual active bridge topologies,while the load port is a passive port with full bridge rectifier one.The proposed design is first validated with simulation results,and then the proposed transformer is implemented and tested.Experimental results show that the designed system is suitable for 4.16 k VAC medium voltage grid integration.

Modeling and Control of the Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) based Solid State Transformer (SST) with Magnetic Integration

Solid state transformer(SST)can provide more advanced functionalities compared with conventional transformer,and has great potential in smart grid application.Recently,the SST with medium frequency(MF)isolation link and magnetic integration feature has been proposed,which can reduce the system volume and thus increase the power density.However,the magnetic integration also introduces strong coupling between the line frequency(LF)and MF variables,which poses a great challenge on modeling and control issues.This paper proposes a modeling and control method for an SST with magnetic integration and mixed-frequency modulation.A mathematical model based on dual d-q references is deduced,and then a cascaded control system is designed according to the model.Parameters of the controller for the variables at one frequency are properly designed to avoid disturbance from the variables at the other frequency.The simulation and experimental results show good decoupling effect and satisfactory dynamics performance of the proposed control system.

Smart Transformer-based Medium Voltage Grid Support by Means of Active Power Control

In the last decades the voltage regulation has been challenged by the increase of power variability in the electric grid,due to the spread of non-dispatchable generation sources.This paper introduces a Smart Transformer(ST)-based Medium Voltage(MV)grid support by means of active power control in the ST-fed Low Voltage(LV)grid.The aim of the proposed strategy is to improve the voltage profile in MV grids before the operation of On-Load Tap Changer in the primary substation transformer,which needs tens of seconds.This is realized through reactive power injection by the AC/DC MV converter and simultaneous decrease of the active power consumption of voltage-dependent loads in ST-fed LV grid,controlling the ST output voltage.The last feature has two main effects:the first is to reduce the active power withdrawn from MV grid,and consequently the MV voltage drop caused by the active current component.At the same time,higher reactive power injection capability in the MV converter is unlocked,due to the lower active power demand.As result,the ST increases the voltage support in MV grid.The analysis and simulation results carried out in this paper show improvements compared to similar solutions,i.e.the only reactive power compensation.The impact of the proposed solution has been finally evaluated under different voltage-dependence of the loads in the LV grid.

Microstructure evolution and phase transitions in metals simulated by the multiphase-field method

The phase-field method has emerged as the method of choice for the description of microstructure evolution and phase transitions in metallic materials.Following general thermodynamic laws a set of evolution equations for the structural variables of the system,the so called phase-fields,are derived.The paper reviews shortly the theoretical background of the multi-phase-field.Different examples demonstrating the applicability of the method to technical steels will be presented ranging from deformation of the dendritic strand shell during peritectic transformation,grain growth in Austenite to stress driven growth of Pearlite.

Preparation,characterization and combustion properties of Zr/ZrH_2 particles coated with α-FeOOH crystal grains

Zr/ZrH2 particles with irregular morphologies and broad size distribution were uniformly coated with acicular α-FeOOH crystal grains via a facile route without using polymers or surfactants. The as-synthesized material was characterized by X-ray diffraction （XRD）, scanning electron microscopy （SEM）, energy dispersive X-ray （EDX）, UV-vis diffusion reflection （UV-vis） and Raman spectrometry. Based on these characterizations, the synthesis mechanism was explained in terms of combined heterogeneous nucleation and solid state transformation reaction. The presence of α-FeOOH coating greatly changed the combustion behavior of Zr/ZrH2 particles： the combustion lasting time decreased from 32 s for un-coated Zr/ZrH2 particles to 0.2 s for coated particles while the maximum temperature in the combustion process increased from 1510 ℃ to 2036℃.