• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.21-31
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• 2022

In recent years, various studies have been conducted on oscillating-water-column-type wave energy converters (OWC-WECs) with multiple chambers with the objective of efficiently utilizing the limited space of offshore/onshore structures. In this study, a numerical investigation based on a numerical wave tank was conducted on single, dual, and triple OWC chambers to examine the hydrodynamic performances and the energy conversion characteristics of the multiple water columns. The boundary value problem with the Laplace equation was solved by using a numerical wave tank based on a finite element method. The validity of the current numerical method was confirmed by comparing it with the measured data in the previous experimental research. We undertook a series of numerical simulations and observed that the water column motion of sloshing mode in a single chamber can be changed into the piston motion of different phases in multiple OWC chambers. Therefore, the piston motion in the multiple chambers can generate considerable airflow at a specific resonant frequency. In addition, the division of the OWC chamber results in a reduction of the time-dependent variability of the final output power from the device. As a result, the application of the multiple chambers leads to an increase of the energy conversion performance as well as a decrease of the variability of the wave energy converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.408-417
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• 2011

The plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are specialized hybrid electric vehicles that have the potential to obtain enough energy for average daily commuting from batteries. The PHEV battery would be recharged from the power grid at home or at work and would thus allow for a reduction in the overall fuel consumption. This paper proposes an integrated power electronics interface for PHEVs, which consists of a novel Eight-Switch Inverter (ESI) and an interleaved DC/DC converter, in order to reduce the cost, the mass and the size of the power electronics unit (PEU) with high performance at any operating mode. In the proposed configuration, a novel Eight-Switch Inverter (ESI) is able to function as a bidirectional single-phase AC/DC battery charger/ vehicle to grid (V2G) and to transfer electrical energy between the DC-link (connected to the battery) and the electric traction system as DC/AC inverter. In addition, a bidirectional-interleaved DC/DC converter with dual-loop controller is proposed for interfacing the ESI to a low-voltage battery pack in order to minimize the ripple of the battery current and to improve the efficiency of the DC system with lower inductor size. To validate the performance of the proposed configuration, the indirect field-oriented control (IFOC) based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) is proposed to optimize the efficiency of the AC drive system in PHEVs. The maximum efficiency of the motor is obtained by the evaluation of optimal rotor flux at any operating point, where the PSO is applied to evaluate the optimal flux. Moreover, an improved AC/DC controller based Proportional-Resonant Control (PRC) is proposed in order to reduce the THD of the input current in charger/V2G modes. The proposed configuration is analyzed and its performance is validated using simulated results obtained in MATLAB/ SIMULINK. Furthermore, it is experimentally validated with results obtained from the prototypes that have been developed and built in the laboratory based on TMS320F2808 DSP.