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Development of new materials for superconducting trapped field (permanent) magnets, and a continuation of tests on a magnetic bumper/tether for spacecraft docking is reported.
A method of treating rare earth metal-bearing permanent magnet scrap, waste or other material in a manner to recover the heavy rare earth metal content separately from the light rare earth metal content. The heavy rare earth metal content can be recovered either as a heavy rare earth metal-enriched iron based alloy or as a heavy rare earth metal based alloy.
A project to study a new type of acceleration structure has been launched at Peking University, in which a traditional radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ) and a separated function radio frequency quadrupole are coupled in one cavity to accelerate the He+ beam. A helium injector for this project is developed. The injector consists of a 2.45 GHz permanent magnet electron cyclotron resonance ion source and a 1.16 m long low energy beam transport (LEBT). The commissioning of this injector was carried out and an onsite test was held in June 2013. A 14 mA He+ beam with the energy of 30 keV has been delivered to the end of the LEBT, where a diaphragm with the diameter of 7 mm is located. The position of the diaphragm corresponds to the entrance of the RFQ electrodes. The beam emittance and fraction were measured after the 7 mm diaphragm. Its rms emittance is about 0.14 π mm mrad and the fraction of He+ is about 99%.
The Van de Graaff accelerator at IRMM works since many years providing proton, deuteron, and helium beams for nuclear data measurements. The original ion source was of RF type with quartz bottle. This kind of source, as well known, needs regular maintenance for which the accelerator tank must be completely opened. The heavy usage at high currents of the IRMM accelerator necessitated an opening about once every month. In 2010, the full permanent magnet Microgan electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source from PANTECHNIK was installed into a new terminal platform together with a solid state amplifier of 50 W, a dedicated dosing system for 4 gases (with respective gas bottles H{sub 2}, D{sub 2}, He, and Ar), and a set of dedicated power supplies and electronic devices for the remote tuning of the source. The new system shows a very stable behaviour of the produced beam allowing running the Van de Graaf without maintenance for several months. This contribution will describe the full installed system in details (working at high pressure in the terminal, spark effects, and optic of the extraction), as well as beam results in dc or pulsed mode.
Here this paper shares with the aerospace community a case study of turboprop mild hybridisation using a recently developed integrated drive system in the University of Nottingham, UK, within the ACHIEVE project under EU H2020 CleanSky 2 program (project No. 737814). The developed drive system enables green taxiing of a turboprop aircraft while on the ground with its engine off, and as an electrical generator when the turboprop is in the air. The entire system is designed to be able to integrate within the power auxiliary gear box (PAGB) of a turboprop aircraft. Some of the key features of the developed system include a high-speed permanent magnet machine (up to 14,200rpm) with dual three-phase design, SiC-based high power density (11.8kW/L for the power converter, 35.3kW/L and 7.2kW/kg for the machine active parts), integrated cooling design for high-temperature operation (>130°C ambient temperature), fault tolerance consideration with dual channel operation capabilities and sensorless control for entire operational conditions. This paper is giving an overview of the design process of the electrical machine, power converters, and its cooling of the entire drive. Numerical analysis (FEM and CFD) and some experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and the desired performance of the developed integrated drive system.
The overarching Project objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of using an innovative Power Take-Off (PTO) Module, to be used in the Columbia Power Technologies, Inc. (C·Power) utility-scale wave energy converter (WEC). The PTO Module uniquely combines a large-diameter, direct-drive, rotary permanent magnet generator; a patent-pending rail-bearing system; and a corrosion-resistant fiber-reinforced-plastic structure. The rail bearing system allows for: • A flexible non-rigid and low-cost generator frame as compared to conventional machines. • A reduction of air gap and consequently lower cost electromagnetic design • Ability to reduce costs by increasing diameter to much larger dimensions, while maintaining the small air gap. • A direct drive electro-mechanical solution that is the fastest and most precise approach for responding to the dynamic variability of forces from wave energy. The land-based test of the PTO Module (DDP1) will provide an important risk reduction phase, to demonstrate the reliability and feasibility of a large-diameter, small air-gap generator that is capable of delivering high efficiency, fault-tolerance and relatively simple "at-sea" maintenance capabilities – qualities that are essential for cost-effective wave energy devices. This is the first known test of such a system.
The LCLS Undulator Beam Loss Monitor System is required to detect any loss radiation seen by the FEL undulators. The undulator segments consist of permanent magnets which are very sensitive to radiation damage. The operational goal is to keep demagnetization below 0.01% over the life of the LCLS. The BLM system is designed to help achieve this goal by detecting any loss radiation and indicating a fault condition if the radiation level exceeds a certain threshold. Upon reception of this fault signal, the LCLS Machine Protection System takes appropriate action by either halting or rate limiting the beam. The BLM detector consists of a PMT coupled to a Cherenkov radiator located near the upstream end of each undulator segment. There are 33 BLMs in the system, one per segment. The detectors are read out by a dedicated system that is integrated directly into the LCLS MPS. The BLM readout system provides monitoring of radiation levels, computation of integrated doses, detection of radiation excursions beyond set thresholds, fault reporting and control of BLM system functions. This paper describes the design, construction and operational performance of the BLM readout system.
Leading wind turbine manufacturers are racing to build larger and more powerful offshore machines. Drivetrain configurations often use a permanent-magnet synchronous generator (PMSG), in either a direct-drive configuration or coupled to a gearbox. With increasing demand for critical rare-earth magnets, new generator technologies are emerging to ensure a stable and secure supply chain. We evaluate three different topologies of radial flux synchronous generators employing high field magnets with reduced or no rare-earth content: a direct-drive interior PMSG (DD-IPMSG), a geared drivetrain combining a medium speed gearbox with a PMSG (MS-PMSG), and a direct-drive low-temperature superconducting generator (DD-LTSG). We develop a conceptual design module for each of these technologies within a larger framework for full turbine design. This provides the fairest comparison between technologies at nominal power ratings from 15-25MW, which represent the next generation of offshore wind turbines. The analyses show that if operational expenditures (OpEx) are constant across the technologies, MS-PMSG results in the lowest LCOE with reductions of up to 7% relative to DD-IPMSG. DD-LTSG also yields lower LCOE values by 2-3% for fixed-bottom turbines and 3-5% with a floating platform. However, results are sensitive to OpEx assumptions, with a mere 10% increase causing the conclusions to shift.
The Kei-source is a compact electron cyclotron resonance ion source using only permanent magnets and a frequency of 10 GHz. It was developed at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) for producing C{sup 4+} ions oriented for high-energy carbon therapy. It has also been used as an ion source for the NIRS-930 cyclotron. Its microwave band region for the traveling-wave-tube amplifier and maximum output power are 8–10 GHz and 350 W, respectively. Since 2006, it has provided various ion beams such as proton, deuteron, carbon, oxygen, and neon with sufficient intensity (200 μA for proton and deuteron, 50 μA for C{sup 4+}, for example) and good stability for radioisotope production, tests of radiation damage, and basic research experiments. Its horizontal and vertical emittances were measured using a screen monitor and waist-scan. The present paper reports the current status of the Kei-source.
We develop high power magnetostrictive vibration power generator for battery-free wireless electronics. The generator is based on a cantilever of parallel beam structure consisting of coil-wound Galfenol and stainless plates with permanent magnet for bias. Oscillating force exerted on the tip bends the cantilever in vibration yields stress variation of Galfenol plate, which causes flux variation and generates voltage on coil due to the law of induction. This generator has advantages over conventional, such as piezoelectric or moving magnet types, in the point of high efficiency, highly robust, and low electrical impedance. Our concern is the improvement of energy conversion efficiency dependent on the dimension. Especially, force factor, the conversion ratio of the electromotive force (voltage) on the tip velocity in vibration, has an important role in energy conversion process. First, the theoretical value of the force factor is formulated and then the validity was verified by experiments, where we compare four types of prototype with parameters of the dimension using 7.0 × 1.5 × 50 mm beams of Galfenol with 1606-turn wound coil. In addition, the energy conversion efficiency of the prototypes depending on load resistance was measured. The most efficient prototype exhibits the maximum instantaneous power of 0.73 W and energy of 4.7 mJ at a free vibration of frequency of 202 Hz in the case of applied force is 25 N. Further, it was found that energy conversion efficiency depends not only on the force factor but also on the damping (mechanical loss) of the vibration.
Renewable energy generation has experienced significant cost reductions during the past decades, and it has become more accepted by the global population. In the beginning, wind generation dominated the development and deployment of renewable energy; however, during recent decades, photovoltaic (PV) generation has grown at a very significant pace due to the tremendous decrease in the cost of PV modules. The focus on renewable energy generation has now expanded to include new types with promising future applications, such as river and tidal generation. The input water flow to these types of resources is more predictable than wind or solar generation. The data used in this paper is representative of a typical river or tidal generator. The analysis is based on a generator with a power rating of 40 kW. The tidal generator under consideration is driven by two sets of helical turbines connected to each side of the generator located in between the turbines. The generator is operated in variable speed, and it is controlled to maximize the energy harvested as well as the operation of the turbine generator. The electrical system consists of a three-phase permanent magnet generator connected to a three-phase passive rectifier. The output of the rectifier is connected to a DC-DC converter to match the rectifier output to the DC bus voltage of the DC-AC inverter. The three-phase inverter is connected to the grid, and it is controlled to provide a good interface with the grid. One important aspect of river and tidal generation is the braking mechanism. In a tidal generator, the braking mechanism is important to avoid a runaway condition in case the connection to the grid is lost when there is a fault in the lines. A runaway condition may lead to an overspeed condition and cause extreme stresses on the turbine blade structure and eventual disintegration of the mechanical structure. In this paper, the concept of the dynamic braking system is developed and investigated for normal and abnormal operations. The main objective is to optimize the performance under emergency braking while designing the system to be as simple as possible to avoid overdesigning the power electronics or exceeding the target budget.
Dry storage of used fuel from nuclear power plants has gone from an interim storage solution to a longer-term solution, which necessitates monitoring the integrity of the stainless steel canister that confines the used fuel. Since the storage facilities are located around the country in a variety of different environments there is a wide range of degradation mechanisms that could occur over time in the cylindrical canister. One potential degradation mode that has created significant concern is stress corrosion cracking. We propose using higher harmonic ultrasonic guided waves as a tool to nondestructively inspect used fuel canisters. Higher harmonics are generated when a wave propagates through a nonlinear elastic media. These higher harmonics have been shown to be quite sensitive to microstructural features such as dislocation substructures, persistent slip bands, precipitates, etc. The use of ultrasonic guided waves to inspect the canister is attractive due to the size of the canister and the ability of guided waves to inspect a reasonably large domain relative to traditional bulk wave ultrasonics. We will highlight our recent progress on theory, numerical simulations, and laboratory experiments to develop higher harmonic guided waves as a tool to detect microstructural changes that precede macro-scale damage. Analyzed structures include plates and hollow cylinders, and we focus on localized damage initiation, as is the case for stress corrosion cracking. Recent experiments focus on using magnetostrictive transducers in activating the fundamental shear horizontal mode (SH0) and the third harmonic that is generated due to the material nonlinearity. The magnetostrictive transducer comprises a thin iron-cobalt foil, a meandering electric coil, and a permanent magnet. These transducers are inexpensive, easy to use, and are very efficient at generating shear waves. In applications where the wavelength is larger than the plate thickness, the waves are guided by the traction free boundary conditions and propagate in the plane of the plate. For this canister application, the shear horizontal waves energize the entire thickness of the canister and propagate along the shell in the direction dictated by the meander coil. Experiments indicate that magnetostrictive transducers can generate waves that propagate in plate thicknesses of 1 mm to at least 16 mm. The SH0 mode is nondispersive and generates a third harmonic of the same mode that is shown to be sensitive to localized plastic strain and unseen fatigue damage. It has a strong potential to detect the very early stages of stress corrosion cracking. Due to the geometric configuration of dry storage casks, the transducers will need to be delivered to the inspection points by a robotic system that navigates through the cask ventilation system. (authors)
This article presents a voltage injection-based current harmonic minimization method for wide bandgap device-based six-phase permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) drives. The presence of low-order harmonics is common in the back EMF of PMSMs with low slot and high pole numbers. The back EMF harmonics generate low-order harmonic currents that increase torque ripples. Furthermore, zero-sequence current (ZSC) is also observed if all six phases are connected to a common neutral point. ZSC does not affect the torque ripple but reduces the system efficiency. A special technique is required to reduce ZSC for variable speed drives as direct ac component to synchronous reference frame (SRF) dc transformation is not possible for ZSC. In this article, a voltage injection-based current harmonics reduction method is proposed. The injected harmonic voltage coefficients are calculated from the harmonic estimations of back EMF and updated using closed-loop harmonic compensators to improve steady-state performance. For ZSC reduction, third harmonics power controller, and for 6n ± 1 (n = 1, 2,...) order harmonic current reduction, SRF current controllers are presented in this article. Furthermore, the current harmonics minimization method is experimentally verified using a GaN-based three-level active neutral point clamped inverter-driven six-phase PMSM.
Neodymium (Nd), a rare earth element (REE), is critical to numerous industries. Neodymium can be extracted from ore concentrates, waste materials, or recycled materials such as recycled Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets. In a standard process, concentrated sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ) is used as an extraction/leaching agent. Therefore, knowledge of Nd(III)–sulfate interaction at high ionic strengths is important for optimization of the extraction process. In addition, sulfate is also a major species in natural surface waters and present in nuclear waste streams. Nd(III) has been used a chemical analog to trivalent actinides in nuclear waste research and development. Consequently, knowledge of Nd(III)-sulfate interactions is also impactful to the field of nuclear waste management. Here, in this study, we have developed a thermodynamic model that can describe the interaction of Nd(III) with sulfate to ionic strengths up to ~ 16.5 mol·kg –1 and to temperatures up to 100 °C. The model adopts the Pitzer formulation to describe activity coefficients of aqueous species. This model can be used to design and optimize a chemical process for REE recovery from ore concentrates, recycled materials, and acid mine drainage (AMD) and to understand the mobility of REEs and actinides in the environment.
In order to improve the source stability, a long term continuous wave (CW) proton beam experiment has been carried out with Peking University compact permanent magnet 2.45 GHz ECR ion source (PKU PMECRIS). Before such an experiment a lot of improvements and modifications were completed on the source body, the Faraday cup and the PKU ion source test bench. At the beginning of 2015, a continuous operation of PKU PMECRIS for 306 h with more than 50 mA CW beam was carried out after success of many short term tests. No plasma generator failure or high voltage breakdown was observed during that running period and the proton source reliability is near 100%. Total beam availability, which is defined as 35-keV beam-on time divided by elapsed time, was higher than 99% [S. X. Peng et al., Chin. Phys. B 24(7), 075203 (2015)]. A re-inspection was performed after another additional 100 h operation (counting time) and no obvious sign of component failure was observed. Counting the previous source testing time together, this PMECRs longevity is now demonstrated to be greater than 460 h. This paper is mainly concentrated on the improvements for this long term experiment.
The design, development, and performance of Medium-energy Electron SPectrometer (MESP), dedicated to the in situ observation of suprathermal electrons in the auroral ionosphere, are summarized in this paper. MESP employs a permanent magnet filter with a light tight structure to select electrons with proper energies guided to the detectors. A combination of two avalanche photodiodes and a large area solid-state detector (SSD) provided 46 total energy bins (1 keV resolution for 3−20 keV range for APDs, and 7 keV resolution for >20 keV range for SSDs). Multi-channel ultra-low power application-specific integrated circuits are also verified for the flight operation to read-out and analyze the detector signals. MESP was launched from Poker Flat Research Range on 3 March 2014 as a part of ground-to-rocket electrodynamics-electrons correlative experiment (GREECE) mission. MESP successfully measured the precipitating electrons from 3 to 120 keV in 120-ms time resolution and characterized the features of suprathermal distributions associated with auroral arcs throughout the flight. The measured electrons were showing the inverted-V type spectra, consistent with the past measurements. In addition, investigations of the suprathermal electron population indicated the existence of the energetic non-thermal distribution corresponding to the brightest aurora.
The permanent magnet 2.45 GHz electron cyclotron resonance ion source at Peking University can produce more than 100 mA hydrogen ion beam working at pulsed mode. For the increasing requirements of cluster ions (H{sub 2}{sup +} and H{sub 3}{sup +}) in linac and cyclotron, experimental study was carried out to further understand the hydrogen plasma processes in the ion source for the generation of cluster ions. The constituents of extracted beam have been analyzed varying with the pulsed duration from 0.3 ms to 2.0 ms (repetition frequency 100 Hz) at different operation pressure. The fraction of cluster ions dramatically increased when the pulsed duration was lower than 0.6 ms, and more than 20 mA pure H{sub 3}{sup +} ions with fraction 43.2% and 40 mA H{sub 2}{sup +} ions with fraction 47.7% were obtained when the operation parameters were adequate. The dependence of extracted ion fraction on microwave power was also measured at different pressure as the energy absorbed by plasma will greatly influence electron temperature and electron density then the plasma processes in the ion source. More details will be presented in this paper.
Circular accelerators used for positron emission tomography (PET, i.e. accelerator used for make radio isotopes) need several mA of CW H- ion beam for their routine operation. Other facilities, like Space Radio-Environment Simulate Assembly (SPRESA), require less than 10 mA pulsed mode H{sup −} beam. Caesium free negative hydrogen ion source is a good choice for those facilities because of its compact structure, easy operation and low cost. Up to now, there is no H{sup −} source able to produce very intense H{sup −} beams with important variation of the duty factor{sup [1]}. Recently, a new version of 2.45 GHz microwave H{sup −} ion source was designed at PKU, based on lessons learnt from the previous one. This non cesiated source is very compact thanks to its permanent magnet configuration. Special attention was paid on the design of the discharge chamber structure, electron dumping and extraction system. Source test to produce H{sup −} ion beams in pulsed and CW mode was carried out on PKU ion source test bench. In CW mode, a 10.8 mA/30keV H{sup −} beam with rms emittance about 0.16 π·mm·mrad has been obtained with only 500 W rf power. The power efficiency reaches 21 mA/kW. In pulsed mode with duty factor of 10% (100Hz/1ms), this compact source can easily deliver 20 mA H{sup −} ion beam at 35 keV with rms emittance about 0.2 π·mm·mrad when RF power is set at 2.2 kW (peak power). Several hour successive running operation in both modes and totaling more than 200 hours proves its high quality. The outside dimension of this new H{sup −} source body is ϕ116 mm × 124 mm, and the entire H{sup −} source infrastructure, including rf matching section, plasma chamber and extraction system, is ϕ310 × 180 mm. The high voltage region is limited with in a ϕ310 mm × 230 mm diagram. Details are given in this paper.