Design of a Conditioner for Smoothing Wind Turbine Output Power

As a result of wind speed intermittency, highly variable wind power output can adversely impact local loads. We propose a conditioner to smooth the variable wind power by utilizing the energy of an ultracapacitor. The conditioner is based on a single phase voltage source inverter (VSI) connected between the grid interconnection point and the ultracapacitor. The shunt VSI injects or absorbs active power from the line to smooth the wind power by utilizing the short term storage capabilities of the ultracapacitor. The ultracapacitor is connected to the DC link through a DC-DC converter, which maintains the voltage of the DC link relatively constant to provide good controllability of the VSI. The control strategies for the conditioner are presented in this paper. The MATLAB simulation results show that the conditioner is efficient in smoothing the wind power. The conditioner design and control will be validated on a Skystream3.7 wind turbine installed at the Missouri University of Science & Technology

LED Roadway Luminaires Evaluation - Final Report

This research explores whether LEDroadway luminaire technologies are a viable future solution to providing roadway lighting. Roadway lighting enhances highway safety and traffic flow during limited lighting conditions. The purpose of this evaluation study is to determine the feasibility of transitioning from standard high pressure sodium (HPS) roadway luminaire to LED roadway luminaire on the MoDOT maintained highway system. This study includes performance evaluations, a feasibility analysis and a potential transition replacement program

Women, Water, and International Experiential Learning

Recruiting women for engineering and science programs is a major focus for many U.S. universities and for our nation in general. Studies have shown that there are specific actions that can be taken to improve those recruiting efforts including K-12 outreach, presenting engineering and science as #caring# professions, and providing hands-on opportunities for students. An academic program at the University of Missouri - Rolla incorporates these concepts in a program focused on development of safe water supplies in the highlands of Guatemala. Women As Global Leaders is a multi-year learning community class that has local and international experiential learning elements. Students from a variety of engineering, science, and business programs participate in an interdisciplinary class which includes fund-raising, community outreach and awareness including K-12, and data collection and analysis. Students in the course may elect to travel with upper division students from a capstone engineering design class to Guatemala to participate first hand in the international experience. Safe water supplies are an ideal topic for women students in the U.S. because women are traditionally responsible for supplying water for their families in many developing countries. Cultural awareness of water-based gender roles in other countries may be a unifying theme for women across national boundaries. The results of a pre-college yield analysis indicate that 79 percent of women participating in a K-12 outreach event eventually enrolled in a science or engineering program at the University of Missouri - Rolla. The Guatemala water supply experiential learning class provides additional opportunities for K-12 outreach including international correspondence (pen pal) experiences between Guatemalan and U.S. students. Perhaps the most important result is that, in collaboration with the capstone design class and U.S.-based non-government agencies, two safe water supplies have been developed in Guatemala and additional efforts to reduce infant-mortality and other water-borne disease are in progress

International Experiential Learning Course Design

International experiential learning projects have increased in popularity over recent years, and many of these projects focus on environmental topics in the developing world. An experimental course in International Groundwater Studies was developed to bridge the gap between extracurricular service type programs and academically-based study abroad programs. The course included online instruction in order to accommodate varying student schedules, and an eight-day field trip to Guatemala was included in the curriculum. These challenging situational factors led to the decision to apply formal design theory to the course, and qualitative self-reported data were collected to evaluate the effectiveness of the formally-designed course to address both the course learning objectives as well as concerns regarding collaborative functionality between students who had had little in-person interaction prior to traveling

Missouri S&T\u27s Global Studies Minor Development Experience

The Missouri University of Science and Technology is a member of a relatively small number of institutions that focus primarily on engineering studies. The prescriptive nature of ABET-accredited curricula means that the opportunities for undergraduate students to study abroad over either the short or long terms are limited. An interdisciplinary group of faculty members working on international water-related research projects developed a campus-wide undergraduate minor proposal intended to attract students interested in international studies without regard to the students\u27 major fields of study. A critical aspect of the minor was the desire by the originators to have the minor administered independently of any degree program so as to maintain an independent (or international ) spirit. Housing the minor at the campus level instead of the academic department level created a unique set of concerns and challenges which required considerable time to address. The most organized resistance to the minor came from some humanities and social science faculty members. The administration of the minor is thus highly defined, and the three- year plus time period required to formally establish the minor resulted in several lessons learned that may be of interest to others who want to pursue interdisciplinary programs. The minor is currently administered by a group of faculty from engineering, physical and natural sciences, liberal arts, and business degree programs; and it is expected that the 2009-2010 academic year will yield the first generation of students in the minor program

Economic and Environmental Benefits of using a Wind Turbine to Power a Groundwater Remediation System

An investigation regarding the feasibility of using a wind turbine to power a groundwater circulation well (GCW) at the former Nebraska Ordnance Plant Superfund site focused on the economic and environmental benefits associated with the renewable energy application. The first phase of the project consisted on the installation of a grid inter-tie wind turbine, and the second phase involved the conversion of the system to off-grid operation. An analysis was performed to characterize the likelihood that the wind turbine systems reduced the quantity of electricity purchased from the utility company. The environmental benefits of the wind turbine/GCW system include the removal of contaminant mass without loss of groundwater to the aquifer and the potential reduction in carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere. The wind turbine manufacturer\u27s performance prediction model was evaluated for reliability given the investigation results

Applying a One-Dimensional Mass Transport Model using Groundwater Concentration Data

One-dimensional analytical mass transport models are familiar to environmental professionals because they are typically used as learning devices in undergraduate groundwater courses. The application of the models requires relatively certain knowledge of contaminant release to the saturated zone. However, release data are typically not reliably known at sites with uncontrolled contaminant releases. A mass balance approach has been developed to calculate contaminant release parameters based on site-specific groundwater concentration data. Standard numerical calibration and sensitivity analysis techniques were modified for use with the one-dimensional spreadsheet model. A groundwater concentration dataset from a Superfund site was used to evaluate three schemes for calculating the model initial concentration. The site application demonstrates how the spreadsheet model could be used for preliminary remediation system comparisons including restoration time estimating. The use of the spreadsheet model may reduce the effort associated with subsequent numerical modeling typically required for remedial design. The spreadsheet application highlights the importance of collecting physical data with groundwater concentration data

A Mass Balance-Based 1D Mass Transport Model

Groundwater remedial design typically requires the development of a reliable mass transport model to evaluate clean up alternatives. A major challenge in the development of a mass transport model is the identification of source release terms such as location and time of release. Although the source location may be characterized during site investigations, the time terms are unknown or poorly known at many sites. This study uses a mass balance-based approach to explicitly account for uncertainty in rectangular pulse release time variables instead of using inverse techniques to rigorously define the release history. The mass balance approach relies on the collection of groundwater concentration data and the standard assumptions used to develop one-dimensional solutions to the advection dispersion equation. A spreadsheet model has been developed to accommodate Monte Carlo simulations, and a concentration dataset from a Nebraska Superfund site was used to evaluate the model. Reasonable results were achieved when the source time parameters were assumed to be random, and the results improved when the mass of contaminant in the aquifer was also assumed to be random

A Review of Missouri S&t Students\u27 Studies of Drinking Water Systems in Rural Guatemala

The rural highlands of Guatemala is a popular destination for American tourists who visit the area for both recreation and for the opportunity to participate in social works programs. One of the challenges associated with studying in the region is the need to maintain a fraternalistic mind-set as opposed to the sometimes more prevalent paternalistic approach. Safe drinking water is in relatively short supply in the highlands, and students and faculty from the Missouri University of Science and Technology have been conducting drinking water studies in the area for more than a decade. The majority of the students have been engineering students, and while women typically make up less than 25 percent of engineering enrollment, the majority of the S&T publications about Guatemala water have been authored by female students