Educational Short Courses

All conference registrants are welcome to attend the educational short courses at no additional charge. Educational short courses are expected to be three hours in duration and are scheduled in parallel with the conference technical sessions. The morning short courses will start at 8:30 AM and conclude at 12:00 noon, with a 35-minute break from 10:10 AM until 10:45 AM. The afternoon short courses will start at 2:00 PM and conclude at 5:30 PM with a 35-minute break from 3:40 PM until 4:15 PM.

 

Educational Short Course 1: Fundamentals of Electric Machines and Drives for Traction Applications
Wednesday, September 7, 2011, 2:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Venue: Adams Room

 Speaker: Dr. Nicholas J. Nagel, Triumph Aerospace Systems – Seattle

Short Course Description: Electric machines and drives are the backbone of hybrid electric and electric vehicles.  This short course will provide an overview of electric machines and drives.  The course will be broken up into two sections.  Section one will cover the fundamentals of electric machines.  We will discuss the physics of machines and modeling techniques to simulate machine behavior.  The course will cover permanent magnet AC (PMAC), AC induction, and switched reluctance (SR) machines.  Section two will cover the basics of machine drives and inverter control.  An overview of four quadrant torque control for each of the machine types will be presented.

 

Educational Short Course 2: EMI: Theory, Coupling Mechanisms, Equivalent Circuits, and Solutions
Thursday, September 8, 2011, 8:30 AM – 12:00 Noon
Venue: Adams Room

Speaker: Dr. Michael Schutten, General Electric Global Research Center

Short Course Description: This short course is intended as a comprehensive introduction for engineers wishing to obtain a fundamental understanding of EMI issues, and experienced engineers with a desire for a thorough understanding of electromagnetic interference (EMI) issues. This short course introduces the concept of electromagnetic energy coupling between electronic circuits. The fundamentals of EMI are presented including terminology, energy transfer mechanisms, equivalent circuits, and EMI circuit fixes. The short course provides several examples of how one electronic circuit has the ability to corrupt or damage a different circuit. The characteristics and electrical symptoms of the four methods of EMI energy transfer are presented: Common impedance coupling, magnetic field coupling, electric field coupling, and radiation coupling. Simple methods for approximating the equivalent circuit, and low cost solutions at the board or component level are provided. PWB layout and IC decoupling procedures are derived from fundamental EMI concepts. Several videotaped experiments demonstrate fundamental EMI coupling techniques and electrical fixes.

 

Educational Short Course 3: Smart Grid Charging and V2G
Thursday, September 8, 2011, 2:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Venue: Adams Room

Speaker: Rich Scholer, Chrysler Group LLC

Short Course Description: This educational short course will give a brief overview of Smart Grid with a clear description of how and why the vehicle will need to communicate to this grid.  An update on the standards and the communication protocol development necessary for this Vehicle to Grid interface will be provided. Discussion will include the Reverse Power Flow development and the net effects this may have on the Electrical Grid, with a primary focus on the communications and architecture needed during these events.

 

Educational Short Course 4: Advanced Modeling and Simulation of Power Electronic Systems
Friday, September 9, 2011, 8:30 AM – 12:00 Noon
Venue: Adams Room

Speakers: John Schönberger, Plexim GmbH, and Kristofer Eberle, Plexim, Inc.

Short Course Description: The goal of this short course is to provide insight into the operation of the continuous variable-step solvers that are used for simulating power electronic systems. The solver is often viewed as a ‘black box’ since this is typically not a topic that is taught in electrical engineering courses. The idea is to shed light on the inner workings of the solver so that the user can understand better how to configure the solver for the problem at hand. The solver operation will be presented within the context of power electronic system simulation and real-life examples will be given in order to reinforce the presented concepts. The second objective is to explain practical techniques for speeding up a large system model that comprises dozens of states. The correct simulation approach can make the difference between a simulation that takes several minutes or several hours. Averaged converter modeling will be discussed since this can speed up the simulation by over an order of magnitude. Thermal modeling will also be discusses because simulating a combined electrical-thermal model can be problematic due to the large thermal time constant.