Design of the power feeding system for electrified railways case study: Panadura -Veyangoda railway sector

In railway systems, electrical traction is more efficient, comfortable and more economical than diesel traction. Since the railway transportation is a major public transportation means in Sri Lanka, having an efficient and reliable electrified railway transportation system will increase the capacity of railway transportation and attract more passengers daily receiving the service. This research is based on the proposed Panadura – Veyangoda railway electrification project. It is of vital importance to identify the required maximum power of the predicted system at the peak hours prior to designing the traction system. MATLAB Simulink software has been applied for the modelling the speed, power and distance of the train movement between stations with respect to time. Using the simulation results obtained from MATLAB Simulink model, a load flow study for the total train movements between Panadura station to Veyangoda station at peak hour is carried out in DIgSILENT Power Factory software to obtain the maximum power required for each traction substation. Finally, the traction substation components are sized and layout of the system and earth grid arrangement is presented for Ratmalana traction substation as a case in point. This software models can be applied for any other railway electrification systems to be predicted by modifying and changing their parameters accordingly

Development of high performance automatic voltage stabilizer for telecommunication applications

The Telecommunication industry in Sri Lanka is having very fast growing and expanding services to their customers. Also, the increasing number of telecom service providers has entered to the industry during past decades, with much competitive Tariffs. At the same time, a regulatory body called "Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka" (TRCSL) was legally formed under the Sri Lanka Telecommunication (Amendment) Act No. 27 of 1996 and start benefiting to the nation in terms of quality, choice and value for money by extending the optimum conditions of the telecommunications industry in Sri Lanka. The main challenge of the service provider is to sustain with the competitive Tariff reductions and advancement of their services to customer door step demanding by the industry. Not like in other industry, the telecom customer is having the freedom to select any service provider by own decision without facing any monopoly or other influence by the industry. This automatically creates the industry to reduce their OPEX& CAPEX continually. The CAPEX is always increasing and the reduction possibility exists only with OPEX in the telecom industry. Electricity is contributes to the major portion of OPEX of remote telecom site operations. The electricity by means of Diesel Generator (DG) operation or Commercial supply (CEB/ LECO) is always a difficult facility in remotely operated telecommunication base stations. This is due to the nature of the location of the selected site and the quality of the nearest/ rural commercial supply. Due to this, the site needs to run with the DG in most of the time period of the day or face with service outages due to interruptions of the electricity with huge OPEX and unexpected losses in income. The main objective of this research project is to develop a system for . automatic voltage regulation at remote telecommunication sites with customized features. The unit is expected to operate under extreme climate, environmental & power abnormality conditions to regulate & maintain reliable & accurate sinusoidal voltage profile to the sensitive telecommunication equipment’s. In addition, the development of the unit should capable to meet the protection requirements from various environmental & power abnormalities, modular construction for easy customization at initial site installations & maintenance, Increased system efficiency, output power quality, fast voltage correction, long life of operation, noise free regulation, less maintenance attention, automatic monitoring, controlling & operation, relatively small construction with lightweight package at lowest possible cost will also be some of the expected outcomes of this development. This research paper will present the background review, detail technical analysis, theoretical development & design, financial analysis and possible areas of further improvements. At the same time, sample implementation also carried out in several sites of Lanka Bell Ltd was proved a considerable financial benefit back to the company. The outcomes of this research will be a remarkable development in the telecom industry. We also supposed .to share this knowledge with all the interesting parties to extend the benefits not only to the telecom service providers, but also to the customers by means of lowest tariffs

15 priorities for wind-waves research: An Australian perspective

This paper describes the process and outcomes of a collaborative process across different Australian stakeholder groups to identify the highest priorities in wind-wave research.The Australian marine research, industry and stakeholder community has recently undertaken an extensive collaborative process to identify the highest national priorities for wind-waves research. This was undertaken under the auspices of the Forum for Operational Oceanography Surface Wave’s Working Group. The main steps in the process were firstly, soliciting possible research questions from the community via an online survey; secondly, reviewing the questions at a face-to-face workshop; and thirdly, online ranking of the research questions by individuals. This process resulted in 15 identified priorities, covering research activities and the development of infrastructure. The top 5 priorities are 1) Enhanced and updated nearshore and coastal bathymetry; 2) Improved understanding of extreme sea-states; 3) Maintain and enhance in situ buoy network; 4) Improved data access and sharing; and 5) Ensemble and probabilistic wave modelling and forecasting. In this paper, each of the 15 priorities is discussed in detail, providing insight into why each priority is important, and the current state-of-the-art, both nationally and internationally, where relevant. While this process has been driven by Australian needs, it is likely that the results will be relevant to other marine-focussed nations

15 priorities for wind-waves research: an Australian perspective

The Australian marine research, industry, and stakeholder community has recently undertaken an extensive collaborative process to identify the highest national priorities for wind-waves research. This was undertaken under the auspices of the Forum for Operational Oceanography Surface Waves Working Group. The main steps in the process were first, soliciting possible research questions from the community via an online survey; second, reviewing the questions at a face-to-face workshop; and third, online ranking of the research questions by individuals. This process resulted in 15 identified priorities, covering research activities and the development of infrastructure. The top five priorities are 1) enhanced and updated nearshore and coastal bathymetry; 2) improved understanding of extreme sea states; 3) maintain and enhance the in situ buoy network; 4) improved data access and sharing; and 5) ensemble and probabilistic wave modeling and forecasting. In this paper, each of the 15 priorities is discussed in detail, providing insight into why each priority is important, and the current state of the art, both nationally and internationally, where relevant. While this process has been driven by Australian needs, it is likely that the results will be relevant to other marine-focused nations