University of Manchester
ContactSchool of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,The University of Manchester PO Box 88 Sackville Street Manchester, M60 1QD, UK Prof. S. Williamson phone: +44 161 3064703 fax: +44 161 3069341 e-mail: steve.williamson@manchester.ac.uk web: www.eee.manchester.ac.uk |
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Manchester is a technological university with a strong emphasis on collaboration with industry, encompassing sponsored research and commercial application of results. In October 2004 the new University of Manchester was formed by merging UMIST with the Victoria University of Manchester. The School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, is currently 58 academics and is one of the largest in the UK with an exceptionally high proportion of postgraduate activity.
The University has long been active in the field of power engineering particularly electrical machines and power systems engineering. Within the School, the Manchester Centre for Electrical Energy (MCEE) comprises 16 academic staff plus 3 Visiting Professors and approximately 20 post-doctoral research associates and 60 PhD students.
Radar, communications and related microwave research currently comprises 12 full time academics and includes the £1.9m JIF Funded Electromagnetics Design Centre. Research is currently being conducted on a wide range of radar and communications systems and components. The group is part of a BAESystems led consortium looking at impact studies of existing designs of wind turbines on radar performance.
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Research groups involved
The School is principally involved in two areas of activity relating to wind turbine technologies: condition monitoring of the electrical systems in wind turbines - ‘Reliability, Availability and Operation’, and radar and lightning protection - ‘Design Influence of External Factors’.
The School has a long-standing and international reputation in the field of power engineering, particularly electrical machinery and power systems engineering. The Electrical Energy and Power Systems Group at The University is one of foremost power engineering groups in the world and includes the new £1.5M National Grid Transco High Voltage Research Centre housing, amongst other high voltage equipment, a 2MV impulse generator for lightning simulation. The Power Conversion Group have recently refurbished their machines, drives and power electronics laboratories to accommodate the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre and includes state-of-the-art test facilities for work on doubly-fed induction generators (DFIG) and other novel generators for wind turbines. Projects include: Supergen V - Wind Energy Technologies - condition monitoring of wind turbine generators; HVDC Electrostatic Generators for Wind Turbine Applications; Wind-farm Conversion Systems and Grid Interfaces; and Lightning protection of wind turbines.
The school has recently combined its activities in the areas of Microwave Engineering and Communication Engineering into one research group namely Microwave and Communication Systems (MACS). This research group considers a wide range of advanced topics applicable to communications and radar; from highly mobile wireless networks, propagation, microwave and milli-metric components, through to digital signal processing, coding and signal analysis. The research group operates at radio frequencies from HF to 200GHz and allows a wide range of cross disciplinary issues to be studied whist retaining a strong focus on communications and microwave component research. Projects include: Supergen V - Wind Energy Technologies - Lightning Protection and Radar Impact; and Stealth Technology for Wind Turbines.
The aims of the research group are to model and optimise microwave and millimetre-wave components and circuits for communication and radar systems, to design instrumentation for industrial applications, and to understand and control electromagnetic radiation and its effect on electronic equipment (EMC).
Facilities & Advanced Research Tools
| Facilities & Advanced Research Tools | The motor and drives laboratories include: Wind generator test facility for condition monitoring and control A calorimeter for high precision measurement of machine losses. A microgrid test rig based around a 20MJ energy storage flywheel. Cryogenic rigs for superconducting & low temperature power electronics research. A test chamber for fuel cell characterisation. A re-configurable multi-phase induction motor rig. An electric vehicle power train including supercapacitor energy storage. National Grid High Voltage Research Centre contains the following equipment: 2MV impulse generator 800kV AC test set 600kV DC test set 20kVA high current source (configurable to maximum current of 10kA) Salt fog and environmental test chambers Modern digital measurement equipment Material processing and characterisation equipment The Electromagnetics Centre includes: Agilent Microwave & MM-Wave Laboratory Microwave Sensing Laboratory Electromagnetic Computation Laboratory |
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| Instrumentation | All of the laboratories offer a modern & comfortable working environment, & we are well equipped with network, impedance & power analysers, oscilloscopes & current probes |
| Software | Power System Analysis Packages: IPSA (Interactive Power Systems Analysis) and Powerworld
are two commercial packages that we use. We also have a number of specific packages
developed to perform studies relating to power system optimisation and power system
dynamics. Output from the CDEGS software showing earth potential plots-CDEGS: This powerful pakkage is used to peform investigations relating to earthing, stray voltages / currents and electromagnetic coupling PSCAD: This power system transient simulator can be used in a wide range of studies ranging from insulation coordination to the simulation of power electronic controllers used within modern power systems FEA Simulation: Vector Fields 'OPERA' is used to perform both 2D and 3D finite element analysis, typically using an electrostatic based code. Flux2D/3D software for electromagnetic machine design Large-scale optimisation: Xpress-MP is used to solve complex mixed-integer power system optimisation problems. |
R&D Strategy
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| short | medium | long | |
| Reliability, Availability and Operation of Large Wind Turbines |  | ||
| Wind system drive system characterisation - Electrical System Characterisation | | | |
| Condition Monitoring – Integrated System Model and Test Rig | | | |
| Generator design, modelling and control | | | |
| Radar cross section and Lightning Protection | | |
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Education and training activities
The School offers a wide variety of postgraduate opportunities including one-year taught Masters programmes to one or three-year MPhil and PhD research degrees. The School also offers a Masters by Research which combines taught and research elements of study. Current relevant taught MSc programmes are: Electrical Energy Conversion Systems; Communication Engineering; and Electrical Power Systems Engineering.
