Active Damping in DC/DC Power Electronic Converters: A Novel Method to Overcome the Problems of Constant Power Loads

Multi-converter power electronic systems exist in land, sea, air, and space vehicles. In these systems, load converters exhibit constant power load (CPL) behavior for the feeder converters and tend to destabilize the system. In this paper, the implementation of novel active-damping techniques on dc/dc converters has been shown. Moreover, the proposed active-damping method is used to overcome the negative impedance instability problem caused by the CPLs. The effectiveness of the new proposed approach has been verified by PSpice simulations and experimental results.     

Pulse regulation control technique for flyback converter

Pulse regulation, a fixed frequency control technique, is introduced and applied to flyback converter operating in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM). The control parameters are designed in a way that the converter operates as close as possible to the critical conduction mode. In contrast to the conventional pulsewidth modulation control scheme, the principal idea of pulse regulation is to achieve output voltage regulation using high and low-power pulses. Pulse regulation is simple, cost effective, and enjoys a fast dynamic response. The proposed technique is applicable to any converter operating in DCM. However, this work mainly focuses on flyback topology. In this paper, the main mathematical concept of the new control algorithm is introduced and simulations as well as experimental results are presented.     

Jamming Resistance Capabilities of Spectrally Phase Encoded OCDMA Communication Systems With Optimum and Suboptimum (Nonlinear Two-Photon-Absorption) Receiver Structures

In this paper, we study three types of jammers, namely, pulse-jammer, partial-band jammer, and follower-jammer, in a typical fiber-optic-based spectrally phase-encoded optical code division multiple-access (SPE-OCDMA) system. We analyze, mathematically, the effects of the aforementioned jammers on the performance of an SPE-OCDMA system for two scenarios, namely, ideal noiseless channel with an ideal optimum receiver and an ultrahigh-speed nonlinear receiver based on two-photon-absorption (TPA) in a noisy channel. Also, for each of the above cases, two types of modulation, namely, on-off keying (OOK) and two-code keying (2CK) are investigated and their system performances are compared. It is shown that under certain conditions, the system performance can be dramatically degraded due to the jamming signals; also, systems using 2CK modulation show a better resistance and performance when compared to systems using OOK modulation.     

Analysis and control of a buck DC-DC converter operating with constant power load in sea and undersea vehicles

Power-electronics-based zonal direct current (dc) power distribution systems are being considered for sea and undersea vehicles. The stability of the dc power-electronics-based power distribution systems is a significant design consideration because of the potential for negative-impedance-induced instabilities. In this paper, the dynamic properties and control of a buck converter feeding a downstream dc-dc converter are studied. The controller in this system combines an instantaneous current feedback loop using hysteresis with a proportional-integral (PI) algorithm to regulate the output voltage of the converter. Based on a large-signal-averaged model of the converter, the stability-in-large around the operation point is presented. The complete analysis is carried out considering a buck dc-dc converter operating with a constant power load (CPL). Simulations and experimental results are provided to verify the analysis.     

The effect of pre-annealing and post-annealing on the transparency of MgAl2O4, prepared by slip casting and spark plasma sintering (SPS)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of slip casting process and the annealing before and after sintering to achieve a transparent MgAl₂O₄. To remove contaminants such as carbon from the structure of shaped spinel bodies, at first, the samples were annealed at temperature of 800?°C, 900?°C and 1000?°C for 2?h and then sintered at 1400?°C. By annealing the sample before sintering at 900?°C, the transmission increased (15% at IR region and 10% at visible region). Although by annealing the samples, the amount of carbon contamination reduced. Annealing the samples after sintering also had some desirable results. The samples annealed at temperature of 1200?°C for a time of 3, 5 and 10?h. The darkness of samples reduced due to the removal of carbon impurities and the sample was annealed at 1200?°C for 5?h had the most transparency in the visible and infrared regions.     

Mechanism of nanostructure bredigite formation by mechanical activation with thermal treatment

This paper reports the successful synthesis of nanostructure bredigite powder by mechanical activation with subsequent annealing. Talc, calcium carbonate, and amorphous silica were used as initial reactants. The initial materials were milled for various times and then annealed in order to obtain single-phase nanostructure bredigite powder. The results showed that during the formation of bredigite powder some intermediate compounds such as wollastonite and larnite were formed. Single-phase nanostructure bredigite powder was synthesized by 10–60 h of mechanical activation with subsequent annealing at 1200 °C for 1 h. The bredigite powder obtained after 60 h milling and subsequent annealing at 1200 °C for 1 h had a mean crystallite size of about 50 nm and mean particle size of about 779 nm.     

Effects of mechanical activation and chlorine ion on nanoparticle forsterite formation

This paper reports the positive effects of chlorine ion on the forsterite formation rate. The influence of mechanical activation of talc and magnesium carbonate mixture on the formation of forsterite structure was studied in the presence of chlorine ion. Mechanical activation increased the contact surface area of the reacting phases as a consequence of intensively reduced particle size, which is very important in the case of diffusion-controlled reactions. Besides, the presence of chlorine ion affected the forsterite formation rate following annealing. The single-phase nanostructure forsterite powder with a crystallite size of about 20 nm was obtained by 5 h of mechanical activation and subsequent annealing at 1000 °C for 2 min in the presence of the chlorine ion.     

Pulse Train control technique for flyback converter

Pulse Train/spl trade/ control technique is introduced and applied to flyback converter operating in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM). In contrast to the conventional pulse width modulation (PWM) control scheme, the principal idea of Pulse Train is to achieve output voltage regulation using high and low power pulses. The proposed technique is applicable to any converter operating in DCM. However, this work mainly focuses on flyback topology. In this paper, the main mathematical concept of the new control algorithm is introduced and simulations as well as experimental results are presented.     

Hybrid Computational Simulation and Study of Terahertz Pulsed Photoconductive Antennas

A photoconductive antenna (PCA) has been numerically investigated in the terahertz (THz) frequency band based on a hybrid simulation method. This hybrid method utilizes an optoelectronic solver, Silvaco TCAD, and a full-wave electromagnetic solver, CST. The optoelectronic solver is used to find the accurate THz photocurrent by considering realistic material parameters. Performance of photoconductive antennas and temporal behavior of the excited photocurrent for various active region geometries such as bare-gap electrode, interdigitated electrodes, and tip-to-tip rectangular electrodes are investigated. Moreover, investigations have been done on the center of the laser illumination on the substrate, substrate carrier lifetime, and diffusion photocurrent associated with the carriers temperature, to achieve efficient and accurate photocurrent. Finally, using the full-wave electromagnetic solver and the calculated photocurrent obtained from the optoelectronic solver, electromagnetic radiation of the antenna and its associated detected THz signal are calculated and compared with a measurement reference for verification.     

Analysis of entropy generation in a hydrogen-enriched turbulent non-premixed flame

The analysis of local entropy generation and exergy loss was performed in a turbulent non-premixed H₂-enriched CH₄–air bluff-body flame. Detailed chemical kinetic, transport properties, and turbulence-chemistry interaction were taken into account in using laminar flamelet model for the simulation of combustion process via an in-house, finite volume code. The analysis was based on local entropy generation calculation. Results showed that thermal conduction made the most contribution to entropy generation followed by chemical reaction and mass diffusion, while the contribution of viscous dissipation was negligible. Entropy generation resulting from thermal conduction occurs in a large volume of the domain, while entropy generation resulting from chemical reaction and mass diffusion occurs only near the bluff surface. The effect of H₂ addition to fuel and air preheating on the entropy generation rate was investigated. It was observed that entropy generation and exergy loss were decreased by H₂ addition, mainly due to a decrease in the chemical reaction component of entropy generation, while entropy generation resulting from thermal conduction slightly increased and entropy generation resulting from mass diffusion remained almost constant. Entropy generation resulting from heat conduction by preheating combustion air decreased, while entropy generation resulting from chemical reaction and mass diffusion remained almost constant. The decrease of thermal conduction contribution in entropy generation is so significant that, by preheating air up to 750 K in the case of pure CH₄, chemical reaction becomes the main source of irreversibility. These investigations show that H₂ addition and preheating the combustion air both lead to the improvement of the second law efficiency, although the second law efficiency is more sensitive to flame structure and air temperature.