Dry Emulation Test-Setup at Ghent University
In WP3, the Power Take-Off and Machine-Side Control (MSC) are studied and designed. An important asset to validate the Machine-Side Control is the dry emulation test-setup, developed at Ghent University.
In the ALPHEUS project, three dual drivetrain Reversible Pump-Turbines (RPT) are developed. Each RPT runner is coupled to a separate Axial-Flux PMSM. The Machine-Side Control (MSC) of this dual drivetrain system is investigated in WP3.
To validate the MSC architectures, a dry test-setup is developed at Ghent University. Here, two induction machines of 37 kW emulate the small-scale RPT behaviour, while the AF-PMSMs are controlled by the MSC. Each of the four machines is driven by a separate fully regenerative ABB ACS880-11 drive. The drives receive the torque setpoints for each machine from the central dSpace MicroLabBox controller. In this controller, both the RPT and hydraulics emulation and the MSC architecture are simulated simultaneously. Furthermore, it serves as a data-acquisition device. For torque sensors, highly accurate and responsive HBK T40B flange-type sensors are used.
As Ghent University has significant experience with novel AF-PMSM designs, the machines in this test-setup are designed and developed by its researchers. The used AF-PMSM topology is the double rotor single stator Yokeless and Segmented Armature (YASA) topology. For more information, please refer to our recent publications:
Drivetrain Architectures for a Mechanically Decoupled Contra-Rotating Reversible Pump-Turbine