• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.35-42
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• 2016

Developments in power electronics have enabled the widespread application of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) inverters, notably for connecting renewable systems to the grid. This study demonstrates that a high-quality power can be achieved using a stand-alone inverter, whereby the comparison between the power quality of the stand-alone inverter with battery storage (off-grid) and the power quality of the utility network is presented. Multi-loop control techniques for a single phase stand-alone inverter are used. A capacitor current control is used to give active damping and enhance the transient and steady state inverter performance. A capacitor current control is cheaper than the inductor current control, where a small current sensing resistor is used. The output voltage control is used to improve the system performance and also control the output voltage. The inner control loop uses a proportional gain current controller and the outer loop is implemented using internal model control proportional-integral-derivative to ensure stability. The optimal controls are achieved by using the Sisotool tool in MATLAB/Simulink. The outcome of the control scheme of the numerical model of the stand-alone inverter has a smooth and good dynamic performance, but also a strong robustness to load variations. The numerical model of the stand-alone inverter and its power quality are presented, and the power quality is shown to meet the IEEE 519-2014. Furthermore, the power quality of the off-grid system is measured experimentally and compared with the grid power, showing power quality of off-grid system to be better than that of the utility network.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제8권5호
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• pp.501-524
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• 2011

Recent studies have discovered that a conventional passive isolation system may suffer from an excessive isolator displacement when subjected to a near-fault earthquake that usually has a long-period velocity pulse waveform. Semi-active isolation using variable friction dampers (VFD), which requires a suitable control law, may provide a solution to this problem. To control the VFD in a semi-active isolation system more efficiently, this paper investigates experimentally the possible use of a control law whose control logic is similar to that of the anti-lock braking systems (ABS) widely used in the automobile industry. This ABS-type controller has the advantages of being simple and easily implemented, because it only requires the measurement of the isolation-layer velocity and does not require system modeling for gain design. Most importantly, it does not interfere with the isolation period, which usually decides the isolation efficiency. In order to verify its feasibility and effectiveness, the ABS-type controller was implemented on a variable-friction isolation system whose slip force is regulated by an embedded piezoelectric actuator, and a seismic simulation test was conducted for this isolation system. The experimental results demonstrate that, as compared to a passive isolation system with various levels of added damping, the semi-active isolation system using the ABS-type controller has the better overall performance when both the far-field and the near-fault earthquakes with different PGA levels are considered.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제9권6호
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• pp.1133-1152
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• 2015

A frequency-domain method is developed for evaluating the earthquake input energy to two building structures connected by viscous dampers. It is shown that the earthquake input energies to respective building structures and viscous connecting dampers can be defined as works done by the boundary forces between the subsystems on their corresponding displacements. It is demonstrated that the proposed energy transfer function is very useful for clear understanding of dependence of energy consumption ratios in respective buildings and connecting viscous dampers on their properties. It can be shown that the area of the energy transfer function for the total system is constant regardless of natural period and damping ratio because the constant Fourier amplitude of the input acceleration, relating directly the area of the energy transfer function to the input energy, indicates the Dirac delta function and only an initial velocity (kinetic energy) is given in this case. Owing to the constant area property of the energy transfer functions, the total input energy to the overall system including both buildings and connecting viscous dampers is approximately constant regardless of the quantity of connecting viscous dampers. This property leads to an advantageous feature that, if the energy consumption in the connecting viscous dampers increases, the input energies to the buildings can be reduced drastically. For the worst case analysis, critical excitation problems with respect to the impulse interval for double impulse (simplification of pulse-type impulsive ground motion) and multiple impulses (simplification of long-duration ground motion) are considered and their solutions are provided.