• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.135-142
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• 2015

Human-powered self-generating devices have been attractive with its operation characteristic independent from outer environment such as weather condition and wind speed. However, conventional self-generators have low electric power output due to their weakly-coupled electromagnetic structure. More importantly, rotary crank motion which is usually adopted by conventional self-generator to generate electricity requires specific skeletal muscles to maintain large torque circular motion and consequently, causes fatigue on those muscles before it can generate enough amount of electricity for any practical application. Without improvement in electric power output and usability, the human-powered self-generator could not be used in everyday life. This study aims to develop a human-powered self-generator which realized a strong electromagnetic coupling in a closed-loop tubular structure (hula-hoop shape) for easy and steady long-term driving as well as larger electric output. The performance and usability of the developed human-powered generator is verified through experimental comparison with a commercial one. Additionally, human workload which is a key element of a human-powered generator but not often considered elsewhere, is estimated based on metabolic energy expenditure measured respiratory gas analyzer. Further study will focus on output and portability enhancement, which can contribute to the continuous power supply of mobile equipments.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.338-346
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• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to improve the reliability of the composite material blades used for the wind power generator, by applying the phased array ultrasonic testing technique out of the many nondestructive test into the blades. Method: The wind power generation composite blades are used, as a case study, in order to evaluate the reliability of the phased array ultrasonic testing technique. Defects that are most likely occurred in the field are injected into the different locations of the three different types of artificial test pieces and then phased array ultrasonic testing technique are applied to evaluate the reliability of its effectiveness. Result: As a result of the analysis of the defect signals by applying the A scan and B scan simultaneously, depth and width of the defect could be obtained. An area of defect was proportional to the amount of energy by color in B scan image. The larger amount of energy, reflected amount of energy was appeared in the order of red, orange, yellow, blue color. Conclusion: The most reliable testing method to detect the defect in composite blades for wind power generation is considered to be the combination of the other destructive testing technique with the phased array ultrasonic testing since the PAUT alone could not detect all range of the defects in the blades.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2013

For regulating generator speed above the rated wind, versatile methods have been published based on PID. However, these methods with the fixed PID gains could not guarantee that the controller works well in the whole area. In this paper, variable PID gain method has been suggested to overcome this problem. The sensitivity of power to blade pitch angle changes according to wind speed. The variable PID gain function has been derived from this sensitivity.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.65 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2016

Wake effects cause wind turbine generators (WTGs) within a wind power plant (WPP) to produce different levels of active power and subsequent reactive power capabilities. Further, the impedance between a WTG and the point of interconnection (POI)-which depends on the distance between them-impacts the WPP's reactive power injection capability at the POI. This paper proposes a voltage control scheme for a WPP based on the available reactive current of the doubly-fed induction generators (DFIGs) and its impacts on the POI to improve the reactive power injection capability of the WPP. In this paper, a design strategy for modifying the gain of DFIG controller is suggested and the comprehensive properties of these control gains are investigated. In the proposed scheme, the WPP controller, which operates in a voltage control mode, sends the command signal to the DFIGs based on the voltage difference at the POI. The DFIG controllers, which operate in a voltage control mode, employ a proportional controller with a limiter. The gain of the proportional controller is adjusted depending on the available reactive current of the DFIG and the series impedance between the DFIG and the POI. The performance of the proposed scheme is validated for various disturbances such as a reactive load connection and grid fault using an EMTP-RV simulator. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme promptly recovers the POI voltage by injecting more reactive power after a disturbance than the conventional scheme.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.262-268
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• 2014

This research introduces the structural design and the validation results of the flexible high speed coupling for 2MW class wind turbine which transmit and cut off torque between gear box and generator. The high speed coupling requires electrical insulation to prevent electrical surface damages on gear box. Therefore glass fiber reinforced plastics is applied to absorb the vibration and deformation of power train and to transmit required torque. Finite element analysis was performed to optimize the thickness and accumulation number of glass fiber reinforced plastics. Torque limiter which cut off the abnormal torque is designed in frictional disc type. The design of the coupling was validated with the performance test of prototype.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.78-83
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• 2014

Recently, a rapid growth of wind power system as a leading renewable energy source has compelled a number of companies to develop intelligent monitoring and diagnostic system. Such systems can detect early mechanical faults, which prevents from costly repairs. Generally, fault diagnostic system for wind turbines is based on vibration and process signal analysis. In this work, different type of mechanical faults such as mass unbalance and shaft misalignment which can always happen in wind turbine system is considered. The proposed intelligent fault diagnostic algorithm utilizes artificial neural network and Wavelet transform. In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed algorithm, mechanical fault generation experimental system manufactured by Gaon corporation is utilized.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.835-842
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• 2014

Cutback control in a grid code is one of the functions of a wind power plant (WPP) that is required to support the system protection and frequency stability. When a cutback control command signal is delivered to the WPP from the system operator, the output of a WPP should be decreased to 20% of the rated power within 5 s. In this paper, we propose a dedicated cutback control algorithm of a WPP based on the ratio of the command power to the available power. If a cutback control signal is delivered, the algorithm determines the pitch angle for the cutback control and starts the pitch angle control. The proposed algorithm keeps the rotor speed at the speed before the start of the cutback control to quickly recover the previous output prior to the cutback control. The performance of the algorithm was validated for a 100 MW aggregated WPP based on a permanent magnet synchronous generator under various wind conditions using an EMTP-RV simulator. The results clearly shows that the proposed algorithm not only successfully reduces the output to the command power within 5 s by minimizing the fluctuation of the pitch angle, but also rapidly recovers to the output level before the cutback control.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.66 no.12
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• pp.1682-1688
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• 2017

In modern society, the number of industrial customers using equipment sensitive particularly to voltage sags is rapidly increasing. As voltage sags can cause loss of information as well as false operation of the control device, it results in the vast economic damage in industrial processes. One way to mitigate voltage sags in the sensitive loads is the installation of distributed generation (DGs) on the periphery of these loads. In addition, renewable energy sources are currently in the spot light as the potential solution for the energy crisis and environmental issues. In particular, wind power generation which is connected to a grid is rising rapidly because it is energy efficient and also economically feasible compared to other renewable energy sources. On the basis of the above information, in this paper, with Wind Turbine Generators (WTGs) installed nearby the sensitive load, the analysis of the mitigating effect comparison by types of WTGs is performed using voltage sag assessment on the IEEE-30 bus test system. That is, the areas of vulnerability according to types of WTGs are expected to be different by how much reactive power is produced or consumed as WTG reactive power capability is related to the types of WTGs. Using the concept of 'Vulnerable area' with the failure rate for buses and lines, the annual number of voltage sags at the sensitive load with the installation of WTGs per type is studied. This research will be anticipated to be useful data when determining the interconnection of wind power generation in the power system with the consideration of voltage sags.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2014.07a
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• pp.215-216
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• 2014

This paper proposes a control algorithm for permanent magnet synchronous generator with a back-to-back three-level neutral-point clamped voltage source converter in a medium-voltage offshore wind power system under unbalanced grid conditions. The proposed control algorithm particularly compensates for the unbalanced grid voltage at the point of common coupling in a collector bus of offshore wind power system. This control algorithm has been formulated based on the symmetrical components in positive and negative rotating synchronous reference frames under generalized unbalanced operating conditions. Instantaneous active and reactive power are described in terms of symmetrical components of measured grid input voltages and currents. Negative sequential component of ac input current is injected to the point of common coupling in the proposed control strategy. The amplitude of negative sequential component is calculated to minimize the negative sequential component of grid voltage under the limitation of current capability in a voltage source converter. The proposed control algorithm makes it possible to provide a balanced voltage at the point of common coupling resulting in the generated power of high quality from offshore wind power system under unbalanced network conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.49-56
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• 2022

This study conducted to obtain the lateral resistance of a wind power foundation reinforced with piles through an model experiment. In particular, the lateral resistance of the foundation was compared with the existing gravity-type wind power foundation by integrating the pile, the wind power generator foundation, and the rocky ground. In addition, changes in the lateral resistance and bending moment of the pile were analyzed by embeded depths of the pile. As a result, it was found that the lateral resistance increased with the depth of embedment of the piles. In particular, the pile's resistance increase ratio was 2.11 times greater in the case where the pile embedded up to the rock layer than the case where the pile was embedded into the riprap. It was found that the location of the maximum bending moment occurred at the interface between the wind turbine foundation and the riprap layer when the pile embeded to the rock layer. Through this, as the lateral resistance of the wind power foundation reinforced with piles is greater than that of the existing gravity-type wind power foundation, it is understood that it can be a more advantageous construction method in terms of safety.