Browsing by Keyword "reliability"
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Item Fault-tolerant neutral-point-clamped converter solutions based on including a fourth resonant leg(2011-06) Ceballos, Salvador; Pou, Josep; Zaragoza, Jordi; Robles, Eider; Villate, José Luis; Martín, José Luis; POWER ELECTRONICS AND SYSTEM EQUIPMENT; RENOVABLES OFFSHORE; GENERALThis paper presents a new three-level topology based on the neutral-point (NP)-clamped converter. An additional leg is added to the basic topology. The main purpose of this leg is to provide the converter with fault-tolerant capabilities. In addition, during normal operation mode, the fourth leg can be used to balance the NP voltage. In this way, the low-frequency voltage oscillations that appear in the NP under some operating conditions are cancelled out effectively. As a result, the modulation strategy of the three main legs of the converter does not have to take care of the voltage balance and can focus on other aspects such as, for instance, minimizing the switching losses of the converter. However, the inclusion of the fourth leg produces some additional losses. A resonant topology is proposed to minimize the switching losses of this leg. Three different fault-tolerant solutions based on the fourth-leg topology are presented. A comparison of these topologies showing their respective advantages and drawbacks is made. Experimental results are presented to show the viability of this approach.Item Optimizing Maintenance Policies for a Yaw System Using Reliability-Centered Maintenance and Data-Driven Condition Monitoring(2020-09) Catelani, Marcantonio; Ciani, Lorenzo; Galar, Diego; Patrizi, Gabriele; Tecnalia Research & InnovationSystem downtime and unplanned outages massively affect plant productivity; therefore, the reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety (RAMS) disciplines, together with fault diagnosis and condition monitoring (CM), are mandatory in energy applications. This article focuses on the optimization of a maintenance plan for the yaw system used in an onshore wind turbine (WT). A complete reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) procedure is applied to the system to identify which maintenance action is the optimal solution in terms of cost, safety, and availability. The scope of the research is to propose a new customized decision-making diagram inside the RCM assessment to reduce the subjectivity of the procedure proposed in the standard and save the cost by optimizing maintenance decisions, making the projects more cost-efficient and cost-effective. This article concludes by proposing a new diagnostic method based on a data-driven CM system to efficiently monitor the health and detect damages in the WT by means of measurements of critical parameters of the tested system. This article highlights how a reliability analysis, during the early phase of the design, is a very helpful and powerful means to guide the maintenance decision and the data-driven CM.Item Performance evaluation of fault-tolerant neutral-point-clamped converters(2010-08) Ceballos, Salvador; Pou, Josep; Robles, Eider; Zaragoza, Jordi; Martin, Jos Lus; POWER ELECTRONICS AND SYSTEM EQUIPMENT; RENOVABLES OFFSHOREThis paper presents a study of the fault tolerance capacity of a neutral-point-clamped converter. Different faults in power semiconductors are considered, and the available postfault states of the converter are shown. In regard of the operation limits, two possible solutions are presented. In these solutions, adding a reduced number of additional components, the behavior of the converter when a switch fails improves considerably. Furthermore, an analysis of the neutral-point voltage balancing conditions after a fault and reconfiguration of the system is also evaluated. Experimental results that prove the correct operation of the proposed topologies are shown.