Power, Control and High Voltage Engineering

• Introduction

• Research Groups

  • Lightning, High Voltage and Insulation Research group

• Research Projects

  • Inverter Electronics for Power Systems
  • Resonant Inverters for DC Links and SVCs
  • Multi Terminal HVDC with Resonant Inverters
  • Multi-Level Converters for Power System Applications
  • Coordinated National Grid Stabilisation
  • Adaptive Periodic Control
  • Control Algorithms for Robots
  • Switching Controller Design with Power System Applications
  • Quality Assurance in Electronics Manufacture
  • Identification and classification of defects in Condenser Tubes
  • Loss of load expectation (LOLE) related to Fauna inducted outages
  • Absolute measurement of Blood Volume
  • Control Surfaces and Volumes - Theory and Applications
  • Global and Local Lightning Characteristics
  • Initiation of Grass and Bush Fires by Lightning Currents
  • The Application of New Methods for Assessment of Degradation and Residual Life of Electrical Insulation in Aged Power Transformers
  • Effects of Multiple Lightning Currents on Distribution Fuses and Arresters
  • Reliability of Distribution Surge Arresters
  • Electrical Over-Stress (EOS) Protection of Low Voltage and Electronic Equipment
  • Evaluation of Risk, Negligence and Reliability in the Electrical Supply Industry
  • Prediction of the Performance of Government Owned Enterprises : the Case of Electricity Authorities

Introduction

Power electronics is a new and fast growing field. At The University of Queensland the research focus has been on power electronics for high power applications as well as on the general techniques of switching controllers.

In the control area, a variety of applied projects are being undertaken, with significant emphasis being placed on the instrumentation necessary for acquiring reliable information to implement the controls. The projects being studied from this perspective range from industrial management through biomedical engineering to power generation and distribution and encompass techniques of signal processing, expert systems, computer control and quality assurance.

Research into high voltage engineering is concerned with three major areas, viz. lightning and electrical overstress protection, electrical insulation and the reliability assessment of power system equipment. In Queensland, electrical storms are not uncommon in the summer months and so research into the effects of lightning and protection against these effects is a matter of major interest, particularly the effects of multiple-stroke lightning. The protection of electronics and other low voltage equipment from electrical overstress is a much newer field, but one of increasing importance.

Reliability of power system equipment is a topic that has been studied for many years in this Department. Our work in this area has recently turned to a very important problem confronting all power authorities, viz. the assessment of degradation and residual life of the insulation power system equipment.

Laboratory equipment in the power and control area includes (i) computer-controlled data acquisition and machine drive control facilities to enable convenient studies of the performance of rotating machines and their controllers, (ii) facilities for interactive design identification and performance analysis of control systems and (iii) harmonic frequency measuring equipment and microcontrollers for studies in power electronics. In the high voltage area, the Department has a lightning observatory which is equipped with a variety of recording equipment and an extremely well-equipped high voltage laboratory which is very actively used for insulation and voltage stress measurements.

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