10 kW Grid-Connected PV System Cost and Environmental Analysis for Government Offices: Darbandikhan Technical Institute as a Case Study

The Iraqi Kurdistan region has significant potential for implementing solar energy with an average annual rate of 5.245 kWh/m2. However, most of its energy supply currently comes from nonrenewable energy sources. With the continually increasing demand for energy, an alternative energy-generation technique is required. Among the various renewable energy resources, generating electricity directly from sunlight is the best option because it can be applied by the average household and is environmentally friendly. In this study, a cost and environmental analysis for a 10 kW grid-connected photovoltaic system is presented for a government building with the aim of reducing the load demand on the grid during weekdays and also to inject the generated power into the power grid during weekends. A simulation of the proposed PV system was generated by using Photovoltaic Geographic Information System software to estimate the system’s production performance. The software showed that the highest energy production was 1,660 kWh, which occurred in August; the total electricity production was 16,184 kWh over a 1-year period. The study also showed that the geographical location of Darbandikhan City is quite sufficient for generating electric power from solar energy. It further showed that it can reduce CO2 emissions by 356.60 tons during its lifetime when compared with a gasoline generator and by 131.38 tons when compared with that of a natural gas generator. The proposed system could serve as a good revenue source for the government by exporting the generated electricity to the grid while at the same time serving as motivation for households in the region; furthermore, this system can also be applied to other governmental offices in Kurdistan to generate some or all of its energy needs

Nurses’ Self-report on the Infection Control Unit Activities and their Experience in the Hospital toward Nosocomial Infections in the Sulaimani Hospitals

Background and objectives: Nurses can prevent the occurrence and transmission of nosocomial infections by following infection control measures such as wearing gloves and masks, using appropriate disinfection of skin and preventing accidental needle-stick injuries. This research aimed to evaluate the availability of hospital uniforms, personal protective equipment, and infection control activities at hospitals in Sulaimani in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and to examine nurses’ experience of nosocomial infections. Methods and materials: A cross-sectional study was performed at 10 governmental hospitals during the period from 20th February to 28th September 2018. 525 nurses were selected as participants by a convenience sampling method. A self-administrated questionnaire was used to collect data, which were analysed using SPSS software. Results: The results showed that 268 nurses (51%) reported that their hospitals provided sufficient uniforms to all the medical staff and the majority of nurses, 444 respondents (84.6%) stated that they were responsible for cleaning their working uniforms. 441 nurses reported that they did not acquire a nosocomial infection, and 479 (91.2%) did not have an accident during their work in the hospital. 79.9% of the nurses (404) reported recapping syringe needles after the usage, and 98 (18.7%) gave a low rating to the infection control unit activity in their hospitals. Finally, more than half of nurses (330) representing 62.9% of the sample were vaccinated against nosocomial infections. Conclusions: Most of Sulaimani governmental hospitals are providing sufficient uniforms for the health staff, the majority of nurses were vaccinated against one or more nosocomial infections, and the majority of nurses do needle syringe recapping

Robotiserad produktionsanpassad magnetmontering för vågkraftverk

This thesis work includes studies and simulation how magnetization of the translator in a linear generator for wave power can be automated. The translator is the moving component in the generator that is "dressed" with permanent magnets. The translator is magnetized with rectangle-shaped permanent magnets that are today's strongest permanent magnet type of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB). Eight equivalent metal sheets are mounted around the translator. The plates have milled tracks where 106 permanent magnets per sheet are mounted. Today the assembling of the magnets is done by hand, which is a very tedious and time-consuming work.  This project presents investigations about the automation of the translator magnetization theoretically and simulation results are preformed in ABB's robot simulation software RobotStudio. Even robot-held tool was designed that enables the robot to be able to magnetize the translator in a simple manner.  The investment cost is roughly 1.5 million SEK. With an economic life-time of five years, the investment costs are estimated to 24000 SEK / month.  According to the calculations, this project is very motivated to implement, as it provides savings up to 17 000 SEK per translator which is 10.2 million SEK assuming that the robot cell is operating at full speed the whole year. According to this thesis work the result is a 4x9 meter cell with two industrial robots of the type ABB IRB6650S. The cycle time to magnetize one translator was calculated to about 10 hours. This prototype of project can possibly be implemented in a full-scale production line and performed according to the calculations and simulations presented in the report. Further work is suggested to improve the tool.Lyssna

Robotiserad produktionsanpassad magnetmontering för vågkraftverk

This thesis work includes studies and simulation how magnetization of the translator in a linear generator for wave power can be automated. The translator is the moving component in the generator that is "dressed" with permanent magnets. The translator is magnetized with rectangle-shaped permanent magnets that are today's strongest permanent magnet type of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB). Eight equivalent metal sheets are mounted around the translator. The plates have milled tracks where 106 permanent magnets per sheet are mounted. Today the assembling of the magnets is done by hand, which is a very tedious and time-consuming work.  This project presents investigations about the automation of the translator magnetization theoretically and simulation results are preformed in ABB's robot simulation software RobotStudio. Even robot-held tool was designed that enables the robot to be able to magnetize the translator in a simple manner.  The investment cost is roughly 1.5 million SEK. With an economic life-time of five years, the investment costs are estimated to 24000 SEK / month.  According to the calculations, this project is very motivated to implement, as it provides savings up to 17 000 SEK per translator which is 10.2 million SEK assuming that the robot cell is operating at full speed the whole year. According to this thesis work the result is a 4x9 meter cell with two industrial robots of the type ABB IRB6650S. The cycle time to magnetize one translator was calculated to about 10 hours. This prototype of project can possibly be implemented in a full-scale production line and performed according to the calculations and simulations presented in the report. Further work is suggested to improve the tool.Lyssna

Miniature Wave Energy Converter (WEC)

Abstract     In this project, I present a design of a scale model of a linear generator (LG) similar to a full size Wave Energy Converter (WEC) being developed at Uppsala University since 2002 and commercialized by Seabased AB. The purpose of a WEC is to convert the energy from ocean waves into electrical energy. In order to implement the behaviour of the prototype design, a preliminary study has been done to further build it for use in education, laboratory tests and research. The challenge with this project is to scale down the WEC but maintain the shape, appearance and characteristics of the generator for educational purposes. A miniature version of a WEC, previously developed by Uppsala University in collaboration with Seabased Industry AB, has been designed with scaling rate 1:14 of the linear dimensions. In this case, the value of the output power is not important- it has simply been calculated. The electrical rated parameters of the three phase generator are power  26 W,  peak line-line voltage  13 V and  rated armature current  2 A. The mechanical parameters utilized in the design are the total length and the diameter of the miniature WEC, 50 cm and 25 cm, respectively. The simulated prototype model (described in Section 5.4) has been validated with an experimental setup comprising translator and stator (described in Section 5.1), where the translator is moved by a programmed industrial robot. The experimental results have shown good agreement with the simulations

Robotiserad produktionsanpassad magnetmontering för vågkraftverk

This thesis work includes studies and simulation how magnetization of the translator in a linear generator for wave power can be automated. The translator is the moving component in the generator that is "dressed" with permanent magnets. The translator is magnetized with rectangle-shaped permanent magnets that are today's strongest permanent magnet type of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB). Eight equivalent metal sheets are mounted around the translator. The plates have milled tracks where 106 permanent magnets per sheet are mounted. Today the assembling of the magnets is done by hand, which is a very tedious and time-consuming work.  This project presents investigations about the automation of the translator magnetization theoretically and simulation results are preformed in ABB's robot simulation software RobotStudio. Even robot-held tool was designed that enables the robot to be able to magnetize the translator in a simple manner.  The investment cost is roughly 1.5 million SEK. With an economic life-time of five years, the investment costs are estimated to 24000 SEK / month.  According to the calculations, this project is very motivated to implement, as it provides savings up to 17 000 SEK per translator which is 10.2 million SEK assuming that the robot cell is operating at full speed the whole year. According to this thesis work the result is a 4x9 meter cell with two industrial robots of the type ABB IRB6650S. The cycle time to magnetize one translator was calculated to about 10 hours. This prototype of project can possibly be implemented in a full-scale production line and performed according to the calculations and simulations presented in the report. Further work is suggested to improve the tool.Lyssna

A robotized 6-DOF dry test rig for wave power

Wave power has the potential to contribute significantly to sustainability by reducing our global dependence on fossil fuels. Due to harsh conditions and high costs associated with offshore testing, lab experiments are favourable for resource-efficient validation and optimization in developing Wave Energy Converter (WEC) technologies. The limited scale and availability of existing wave tanks, and the limited flexibility of existing dry test rigs does however put significant restraints on such experiments. In this paper we introduce an alternative novel robotized dry test rig concept for wave power, evaluate its performance and discuss its potential. A full-scale robotized dry test rig demonstrator is constructed and used for experiments with a WEC prototype device. High motion flexibility and accuracy is thereby validated, also for repeating recorded wave and buoy motions. Compared to other dry test rigs, no special components were used and the motion trajectories were defined in full 6-Degrees-Of-Freedom. Two real-time hydrodynamic motion response methods are also demonstrated in the test rig, enabling emulation of actual offshore operation as well as development of advanced WEC control strategies. With a larger industrial robot manipulator, the introduced test rig concept could achieve realistic scaled force and power experiments with most point absorber WECs

Low-RPM Torque Converter (LRTC)

The concept concerned in this paper is based on energy conversion of the ocean waves via rotational generators. The objective of this research is to develop a new type of slow-motion converter. The LRTC device consists of a drum that is connected via wire to a floating buoy. The drum is connected to rotary generators. The generators are heavily braked when the direction of movement changes (up/down); this is because the generators have been charged the maximum load in order to obtain maximum output power. For upcoming improvement, the generators should have some power storage as flywheel. In the future experiments, the torque converter can even be tuned to rotate in resonance with the incoming waves, strongly increasing power absorption. Constant force springs are applied for this purpose. The focus of this project is, therefore, a new generation of wave power device for utility-scale energy conversion offering a cost of energy that can compete with established energy resources

Robotized Surface Mounting of Permanent Magnets

Using permanent magnets on a rotor can both simplify the design and increase the efficiency of electric machines compared to using electromagnets. A drawback, however, is the lack of existing automated assembly methods for large machines. This paper presents and motivates a method for robotized surface mounting of permanent magnets on electric machine rotors. The translator of the Uppsala University Wave Energy Converter generator is used as an example of a rotor. The robot cell layout, equipment design and assembly process are presented and validated through computer simulations and experiments with prototype equipment. A comparison with manual assembly indicates substantial cost savings and an improved work environment. By using the flexibility of industrial robots and a scalable equipment design, it is possible for this assembly method to be adjusted for other rotor geometries and sizes. Finally, there is a discussion on the work that remains to be done on improving and integrating the robot cell into a production line

Variable renewable energy sources for powering reverse osmosis desalination, with a case study of wave powered desalination for Kilifi, Kenya

An analysis of reverse osmosis powered by ocean wave power is provided. A commercially available desalination system is connected via a DC/AC converter to a variable DC source and the input voltage is altered to emulate the response of a renewable energy system. Specifically, wave data from Kilifi in Kenya during 2015 is used. The wave resource variations provide variations in estimated power output from a wave energy converter, as well as in estimated freshwater production from a wave powered desalination system. Up to three wave energy converters for desalination are investigated for Kilifi. Also, a hybrid system including solar and wave power is proposed. The experiments show that reverse osmosis desalination systems can function at power levels below the rated values, but with lower freshwater flowrates. It is concluded that wave power, or wave power combined with PV systems, may be considered as power sources for desalination, with or without battery storage