A Digital Hardware Platform for Distributed Real-Time Simulation of Power Electronic Systems18

Adler, Felix; de Doncker, Rik W. (Thesis advisor); Monti, Antonello (Thesis advisor)

1. Auflage. - Aachen : E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University (2017, 2018)
Book, Dissertation / PhD Thesis

In: E.On Energy Research Center: Power Generation and Storage Systems (PGS) 50
Page(s)/Article-Nr.: 1 Online-Ressource (ix, 156 Seiten) : Illustrationen

Dissertation, RWTH Aachen University, 2017

Abstract

Power electronic circuits have long since permeated technology sectors that pose strict requirements on reliability and safety, calling for appropriate testing and qualification tools. In particular, high-power applications introduce possibly costly or difficult testing environments. Therefore, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing is being firmly established in power electronics where the component-under-test is exposed to a simulated environment. Real-time simulation is the foundation for HIL testing as not only accurate but instantaneous quantities are needed to hide the simulation from the component-under-test. The expected future increase of the complexity of simulation models for large-scale power electronic systems render any single processing node underpowered in the long run. This thesis develops a scalable real-time simulation platform designed for the simulation of large-scale power electronic systems to study switching effects and their interactions in the compound system. It explains the fundamentals of the real-time simulation of power electronic circuits and the principles of distributing a simulation to multiple processing nodes. It describes the real-time simulation platform and demonstrates its functionality and performance by real-world experiments: a hardware converter is compared to a simulation running simultaneously in real-time and a simulation of a cluster of wind turbines connected by a DC grid demonstrates the distribution of a real-time simulation.

Institutions

• E.ON Energy Research Center [080052]
• Chair of Power Electronics and Electrical Drives [614510]
• Institute of Power Electronics and Electrical Drives [614500]