Once again, the IET Barcelona network was proud to organise the PATW event held on the 30th of October at  the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain. 



The venue was provided by the U.A.B. and the event took place in the graduation room, where typically the University students present their projects for their assessment to the academic staff. 



There were a few brave young engineers who took the plunge and presented at the PATW event, doing an excellent job with the audio and visual facilities but, above all, with the structure of their presentations, easy to follow, and their fluent speech to complete the explanation of the project. 



The panel selected as a winner Núria Egidos, a student from Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, who presented her project: A HARMONIC GENERATION PLATFORM FOR INDUCTOR TEST AND QUALIFICATION



The synopsis of her project was as follows:



In power electronics applications, presence of undesired harmonic components can deteriorate system performance and damage electronic components. For instance, electronic loads usually inject undesired harmonic components to (and thus distort) their power supply, which in this project’s scope is the grid.

  

Besides, this harmonic content increases apparent power, which forces over dimension of components which shall withstand them – transformers, inductances, capacitances. For the last two, harmonics provoke an overheating which may lead to an early deterioration.  



So as to evaluate, characterize and eventually optimize component design, this project consists of the development of a test system to monitor inductors, which are driven with currents including both low-frequency components (mainly 50Hz) and high-frequency components: PWM switching frequency (from static converters in which inductors will be used), and harmonics up to 1kHz (corresponding to low-frequency harmonics that grid inductors usually withstand).





Of course, judges and other participant as well posed for a Photo where not only the IET Prize was awarded, but also the HP slate kindly sponsored by HP for this event. 



And finally, drinks were catered during the closure of the event and music played by two local members.



All in all, an interesting evening and a pleasant place to be for friends and members of the institution and certainly to be repeated next year.





Report by Gianni Cessel