Lessons learned using electrical research test infrastructures to address the electrical challenges faced by ocean energy developers

Armstrong, S.; Rea, Judy; Faÿ, François-Xavier; Robles, Eider

doi:10.1016/j.ijome.2015.08.004

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The work here presented may be extended and applied to a more advanced design (e.g., considering a predictive strategy with artificial neural network) of the control system for the OWC taken as reference, to improve its performance. The usefulness of the HIL test rig is in fact demonstrated not only by the study case of this work, but also by the works in [19] and [22] for different WECs at the design stage. More recently, it has been validated also for a real [27], but it was never defined and structured as in the present work.…”

mentioning

confidence: 71%

“…The same HIL test rig has been applied to develop other WECs with high Technological Readiness Level (e.g., for the development of different WECs named REWEC3, OWC Spar-buoy, Ocean Energy buoy, and ISWEC [19,22]). Good results were also obtained to set a predictive control for the full-scale biradial turbine of the Mutriku OWC plant [27] .…”

Section: Hil Test Benchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This work focuses on a procedure tending to optimize the efficiency of a WEC at early development stages when a real system or prototype has not yet been installed and running. Works carried out in FP7 MaRINET Project [18,19] highlighted the limitations of numerical modeling such the lack of representation of response delays, physical constraints, as well as apparatus thermal behavior under standard and extreme operating conditions. A good trade-off between expensive tests on real systems and approximated simulations is the Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) testing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Iterative Refining Approach to Design the Control of Wave Energy Converters with Numerical Modeling and Scaled HIL Testing

et al. 2020

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The aim of this work is to show that a significant increase of the efficiency of a Wave Energy Converter (WEC) can be achieved already at an early design stage, through the choice of a turbine and control regulation, by means of an accurate Wave-to-Wire (W2W) modeling that couples the hydrodynamic response calibrated in a wave flume to a Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) test bench with sizes and rates not matching those of the system under development. Information on this procedure is relevant to save time, because the acquisition, the installation, and the setup of a test rig are not quick and easy. Moreover, power electronics and electric machines to emulate turbines and electric generators matching the real systems are not low-cost equipment. The use of HIL is important in the development of WECs also because it allows the carrying out of tests in a controlled environment, and this is again time- and money-saving if compared to tests done on a real system installed at the sea. Furthermore, W2W modeling can be applied to several Power Take-Off (PTO) configurations to experiment different control strategies. The method here proposed, concerning a specific HIL for testing power electronics and control laws for a specific WECs, may have a more general validity.

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mentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Hil Test Benchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Iterative Refining Approach to Design the Control of Wave Energy Converters with Numerical Modeling and Scaled HIL Testing

et al. 2020

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“…The Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) testing scheme is considered as a state-of-the-art tool to bridge the gap between the laboratory and operational environment. In the wave energy sector, HIL has already been used for testing PTOs, as described in [3], [4], [5] and [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An innovative Hardware-In-the-Loop rig for linear PTO testing

Alessandri¹,

Gallorini²,

Castellini³

et al. 2022

Int. J. Mar. Ene.

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This paper describes the activities related to the design, manufacturing and commissioning of an innovative Hardware-In-the-Loop test rig for linear Power Take-Off testing. The rig is characterised by a fully coupled architecture in which three electro-mechanical units integrating a ballscrew and an electrical machine can actuate on a linear axis, either as motor or generator. A preliminary mechanical design of the test rig was carried out by identifying the most demanding conditions. The electrical and mechanical designs were assessed through a de-risking simulation of the overall test rig set-up, considering faults between the motors and respective power converters. The resulting rig setup includes a structure that embeds the three units, an electrical control panel and a control system. The use of electro-mechanical units increases the flexibility of the setup and simplifies the test of extreme conditions such as maximum output power or actuation force. Moreover, it allows reusing the power produced by the generating devices, thus reducing operational costs of the tests. The control system integrates a real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulation platform, a supervisory control and data acquisition systems. Those offer not only the possibility of easily tuning parameters but also testing new control strategies, operational situations, and failures of a power-take-off system in very realistic conditions.

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