PhD Studentship: Improving the Reliability of Solid Dielectric Material in Power Systems subject to High Penetration of Inverter-Based Resources

This 3.5 year PhD project is fully funded and home students, and EU students with settled status, are eligible to apply. The successful candidate will received an annual tax free stipend set at the UKRI rate (£19,237 for 2024/25) and tuition fees will be paid. We expect the stipend to increase each year. 

The energy system worldwide is transforming rapidly towards the trends of decarbonization and decentralization, which influenced how we generate, transmit and consume electricity every day. As important as the energy section, the transportation sector is also experiencing significant technical revolution where new techniques are emerging to reduce carbon footprint. Majority of countries have set up achievable targets for decarbonization. The UK government has committed to strengthen its objective from ‘80% reduction in CO2 from 1990 levels’ to ‘net zero’ with a completion date in 2050 or even earlier. On the transportation sector, more and more electric vehicles (EV) have been manufactured to replace traditional vehicles which consumes fossil fuel. All these ambitious targets and technical movements require large scale commissioning of power electronic devices which converts energy into various formats in terms of voltage and frequency etc (inverter-based resources). Typical examples are power conversion modules in HVDC converter stations, electric vehicles, wind turbines, photovoltaic panels etc. In order to improve the power conversion efficiency, the current trends of these power conversion modules are to design devices which have higher operational voltage and current. In the HVDC converter station, the higher the output voltage it is, the less modules required to be connected in series to achieve transmission voltage level, therefore better reliability can be achieved. However, this trend of increased energy density, which resulted from increased voltage and current, proposed challenges on the insulation systems. Unlike traditional scenarios, within the power conversion application, dielectric material is subject to complex operational conditions. One aspect is the complex waveform of electric field seen by the insulation material, such as AC, DC or hybrid of both with wide frequency ranges and superimposed with harmonics. The other aspect is its thermal loss and dissipation significantly affect the performance of the dielectric materials. The third key aspect is the geometric structure within the power conversion module is usually complex, where significant number of interfaces for dielectric-conductive material or dielectric-dielectric material exists, which are believed to be the weakest point within an insulation design. The proposed research work for this PhD project is to characterize the insulation performance for dielectric interfaces within power conversion applications considering the variation of frequency, harmonics, thermal dissipation and mechanical strain. Models are to be established to illustrate multi-physics field effects for dielectric interfaces with the purpose to provide guidance when designing the insulation systems for the power conversion applications.

Applicants should have, or expect to achieve, at least a 2.1 honours degree or a master’s (or international equivalent) in a relevant science or engineering related discipline, or have previous industrial work experience in relevant subject (power and energy sector).

To apply, please contact the main supervisor, Dr Steven Qi Li - qi.li@manchester.ac.uk. Please include details of your current level of study, academic background and any relevant experience and include a paragraph about your motivation to study this PhD project.

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