Engineering New Frontiers Summer Camp - the School of ...

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cuaengineer CUA Students Bring Solar to Local Monks In fall of 2010, Friar John-Sebastian of the Franciscan Monastery on Quincy Street near the CUA campus contacted Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Scott Mathews, Ph.D. Friar John-Sebastian had heard about the new program in Alternative and Renewable Energy being offered through the electrical engineering department. He offered the use of the greenhouse and monastery grounds for the installation of “green” engineering projects. It was decided that CUA engineering students would design and install a photovoltaic array at the monastery’s greenhouse to help heat it in the winter and to run circulation fans through the summer. With generous contributions from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science ($10,000), the monastery ($4,000), and David Wells of Northside Solar ($5,000 in solar equipment and hardware), Mathews purchased a 1.2 kW, off-grid photovoltaic system with batteries and power inverter. The installed system is a two-axis tracking, photovoltaic array, meaning that the solar panels not only follow the arc of the sun throughout the day, but also track the sun through the seasons as the sun’s path across the sky changes. High worldwide demand delayed the system’s arrival until after the fall semester had ended. In spring 2011, Mathews and a group of engineering students began the installation process, spending several hours each weekend at the monastery. Students first dug a large square pit and poured concrete for the footer on which they mounted the tracking system then dug a 40-foot trench up to the greenhouse in order to lay all the wires and cables Associate Professor Mathews’ electrical engineering students in front of their hard work. 14 | cuaengineer underground. They then designed and constructed the support system to mount the solar panels. This process included cutting and welding steel tubes to make the support structure rigid enough to hold the panels in gale force winds. The team then built shelves in the greenhouse to hold the eight deep-cycle, lead-acid batteries; the charge controller; and the AC/DC power inverter. Then they pulled several hundred feet of wires through the underground conduit to connect the electronics in the greenhouse to the panels and tracking system. This project is an excellent example of “hands-on” engineering. Students not only learned about power and control electronics, they learned how to mix and pour concrete, and do wind-loading calculations, carpentry, solar site-surveying, and welding. While this system will not provide for all the electrical power needs in the greenhouse, it is hoped that it will significantly reduce the electric bill, especially in the winter when electric heaters are used to keep the greenhouse warm through the night. This system also will be an excellent teaching tool for students in the Alternative Energy program. In the coming semesters, students will be able to use this system as a test-bed for new tracking controllers, power monitoring systems, and instrumentation packages. A group of students is already planning a senior design project based on this installation. For more information about the photovoltaic array at the monastery or taking a tour of the greenhouse, contact Mathews at mathewss@cua.edu.
Energy in the Wind by Associate Professor Scott Mattews On a blustery Friday morning in late October, two minivans left the Pangborn parking lot, loaded with CUA engineering students. I drove one and the other was driven Randy Swisher, Ph.D., adjunct professor and retired executive director of American Wind Energy Association. We were beginning the threehour drive to Garrett County, Pa., the location of the Casselman Wind Project. Swisher had arranged a state-of-art tour of a wind power installation, owned and operated by Iberdrola Renewables, one of the world’s largest wind power companies. As the vans left the city, the two groups of students from the Alternative Energy Program began harassing one another using walkie-talkies. As they got off the interstate, nearing their destination, I missed a turn. The GPS quickly recalculated. Another missed turn and route recalculation put the two minivans on a tiny dirt road. After about a mile and a half on the bumpy, wooded road, the walkie-talkies crackled, “This can’t be right … I can’t believe these roads are even on a GPS map!” At that point, the GPS began to indicate that they were “off road” and gave no indication of where to go. As the students looked out the window, they realized they were driving through an open-pit mine, an active open-pit mine. A large crane came into view, shoveling loads of dirt into a dump truck. Some of the students looked worried. The gravel road led to a hard surface road. The GPS recalculated its position, and wind turbines began to appear on the horizon. Driving up the Casselman River valley, the students could look in any direction and see the tall, white towers on almost every hilltop and ridgeline. They were in wind country. Within a few miles, they spotted the “Iberdrola” sign, turned onto another gravel road, and headed down toward the only building in sight, the Project Control Center. When they got out of the minivans the wind was strong. The sound of the gigantic blades slicing through the air was quiet but distinct. They were greeted by engineers Chris Long, Brad Burkebile, and project manager Doug Schafer, who invited the group inside and began talking about the facility: 23 wind turbines, built by GE, each rated at 1.5 MegaWatts, eight turbines placed on top of a reclaimed coal mine. The employees gave details about the technology and the day-to-day operation of the facility. The students asked many questions, all answered with technical detail. Chris Long then showed the computer terminal and software used to control the entire wind farm. He showed pages and pages of data being acquired from the turbines in real time, as well as graphs of power production, wind speeds, and turbine “availability” on a daily basis, that gave monthly and annual averages. He described how the entire “wind park” could be monitored and operated remotely via the Internet. Doug Schafer then led the group into the parts warehouse, where he showed replacement components, tools for repair and maintenance, and the safety gear used for tower ascent, or as he put it “working up-tower.” He then described employees’ annual training for dealing with up-tower emergencies or the rapid evacuation of the nacelles. The nacelle, which sits atop the tower, contains the gear box, low- and high-speed shafts, generator, controller, and brake. Finally, students were taken in groups of six out to one of the turbines that had been shut down for the tour. Once the massive blades came to a complete stop, the group approached the base of the tower. Later one of the students remarked, “I’ve seen them on TV and seen lots of pictures … Casselman Wind Project, Garrett County, Pa. cuaengineer but I never appreciated how big they really are until I stood at the base and looked up.” Brad Burkebile opened the door to the tower and led them inside. At first, everyone seemed quite disappointed to only be touring the “down-tower” section of the turbine, but after seeing the ladders rising up into the nacelle, no one complained. Wind turbines don’t have elevators. Even though the turbine was shut down, the active yaw system was still functioning. Every few minutes you could hear the yaw motors engage, and if you looked straight up, you could see the inside of the nacelle turning, always pointing into the wind. Burkebile explained the functions of the massive electrical systems installed at the base of the tower: step-up transformers, power conditioning circuits, phase matching circuits, and the connections to the local power grid. The weather turned cold and the wind was beginning to pick up, so the first group headed back inside the control center to warm up and let the second group have a look. At the end of the long trip back, we all agreed, “Pictures on the Internet are never as good as seeing something with your own eyes.” Students in control center, monitoring the turbines. fall2011 | 15
Page 1 and 2: cuaengineer THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY
Page 3 and 4: Dean’s Message • Greetings from
Page 5 and 6: Professor Applies Computer Science
Page 7 and 8: Engineering School Launches New Sum
Page 9 and 10: Noted with Sadness, Charles Kaman,
Page 11 and 12: Alumni Corner 1940s Robert T. Schro
Page 13 and 14: Recent Grad Earns Top Gun Award Whe
Page 15: CUA EECS Faculty Establish High-Per
Page 19 and 20: cuaengineer Ph.D. Students Present
Page 21 and 22: high-accuracy and full-field 3D ima
Page 23 and 24: whole blood clots using pulsed-high
Page 25 and 26: Delta,” Chesapeake Biological Lab
Page 27 and 28: ■ Li, R., You, K., Sun, L., and G
Page 29 and 30: 2001-2002, by ASCE’s G-I Institut
Page 31 and 32: Anwar H. Alharbi American Electric

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