MAINSTREAM ENGINEERING CORP — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N171-073

Description

Unbalanced loading of electrical generators can increase system losses, reduce generator lifetime, and increase the frequency of spurious circuit breaker tripping. Current technology to balance loads include EVRs and UPSs, which are must too large and heavy for application in navy submarines. Therefore, the Navy is in need of more flexible and power dense solutions such that timely equipment changes and upgrades are possible. Mainstream Engineering proposes an active power filter (APF) based solution that is 19 inch rack mountable, can balance >12% current (power) unbalance on a 40 kW load, and occupies <4U height. The proposed APF can not only correct for phase current (power) unbalance, but can also provide power factor (pf) correction and harmonic current compensation due to its sophisticated control algorithms. For the Phase I, we will complete the design of the proposed APF. Furthermore, Mainstream will build a full-scale phase balancer in the Phase I, experimentally verifying simulation models and phase balancing capabilities. With a successful Phase I, Mainstream anticipates rapidly transitioning the proposed technology to a full-scale prototype early in the Phase II.