- Date:
- 2001-2004
- Themes:
- High Voltage Engineering, High Voltage Engineering, High Voltage Engineering
- Funding:
- The National Grid Company plc
This project is concerned with the feasibility of using capacitive coupling techniques to detect partial discharge activity in high voltage cables and cable accessories. In particular the need to develop an accurate method of calibration is required if capacitive couplers are to be used for on-line condition monitoring. Post-processing of measurement data will be developed so that the discharge type and its location can be identified.
Primary investigators
- Paul Lewin
- aed
Secondary investigator
- pw00r
Partner
- The National Grid Company plc
Associated research groups
- Electrical Power Engineering
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering
- Date:
- 2000-2003
- Themes:
- Nanomaterials and Dielectrics, HV Transformers
- Funding:
- The National Grid Company plc
Recovery Voltage is a phenomenon of polymeric insulators. It is believed to have close relationship with the aging state and moisture content of the insulator. However the interpretation of the measurement is still open to debate, therefore the aim of this project is to study the relationship of measurement with relevant parameters under controlled environment. This will then lead to a model that will be applicable in actual transformer diagnosis.
Partner
- The National Grid Company plc
Associated research group
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering
- Date:
- 2000-2003
- Themes:
- Nanomaterials and Dielectrics, High Voltage Engineering
- Funding:
- EPSRC (GR/R02610/01), The National Grid Company plc, Pirelli Cables Ltd
This project has been established by the Electrical Power Engineering Group at the University of Southampton, and its collaborators the National Grid Company and Pirelli Cables to address some fundamental issues associated with the application of superconducting technology.
Within existing superconducting equipment designs LN2 is used as both the coolant and electrical insulator. Primarily this project is concerned with power transmission and the potential difficulty for all types of superconducting equipment at the ambient/cryogenic boundary. There exists the potential for electrically weaker thermal bubbles of gas nitrogen to form due to thermal influx either from the outside of a termination or through the conductor.
This project will undertake a fundamental study of the bubble dynamics through the life-cycle stages of nucleation/growth/break-off/rise from surface. A purpose built cryostat has been designed and manufactured in-house enabling investigation of bubble dynamics for a range of different samples and conditions including; liquid nitrogen temperature, heat influx regime, pressure (to 20bar), surface materials and geometries.
This study is currently focused on the examination of the influence of electric fields upon the bubbles and LN2; the pre-breakdown, partial discharge and breakdown for the conditions simulated and materials/geometries realistic to the application of superconductivity technology. The project will furnish the University of Southampton and its collaborators with design data that can only be obtained through such extensive experimental validation.
Primary investigators
Secondary investigator
- djs
Partners
- The National Grid Company plc
- Pirelli Cables Ltd
Associated research group
- Electronics and Computer Science
- Date:
- 2000-2001
- Theme:
- Applied Electromagnetism
Primary investigator
Secondary investigators
- aar
- Kevin Goddard
Associated research group
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering
- Themes:
- Applied Electromagnetism, Design, Automation, Simulation and Optimisation
- Funding:
- FR-HiTEMP
Primary investigators
- ahk
- Jan Sykulski
Associated research group
- Electronics and Computer Science
- Theme:
- Design, Automation, Simulation and Optimisation
- Funding:
- GEC Marconi / BAE Systems
The project adopts a new system for automatic design and optimisation of PM motors with the aid of a commercial finite-element package. The main novelty of the approach is in the usage of an interpolation technique to accommodate the time stepping. This reduces the number of finite-element solutions required and thus offers considerable savings in computing times. The system has already proven its usefulness, with considerable accuracy, for design purposes and optimisation.
Primary investigators
- ahk
- Jan Sykulski
Associated research groups
- Electrical Power Engineering
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering
- Date:
- 2000-2004
- Theme:
- Superconductivity
- Funding:
- EPSRC (GR/N21253/01)
Project objectives: 1. Design, build and test a demonstrator generator to assess the potential of HTS technology in electric power applications. 2. Study fundamental problems associated with the use of HTS materials in such applications. 3. Study and optimise heat transfer and refrigeration within a rotating cryostat. 4. Conduct a comprehensive program of tests to assess the performance of HTS tapes under operating conditions. 5. Develop computer simulation models for virtual prototyping. 6. Produce flexible design guidelines for electric power devices using HTS tapes.
Primary investigators
- Jan Sykulski
- Professor C Beduz
- Dr Y Yang
- Dr N Stephen
Secondary investigators
- Kevin Goddard
- Dr M K Al-Mosawi
- kss00r
Associated research groups
- Electrical Power Engineering
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering
- Date:
- 2001-
- Theme:
- Pervasive Computing and Networks
- Funding:
- Department
How to connect a home network of computers to the Internet and setup a firewall to protect them. This specifically does not use Linux, but does it all with Microsoft Windows.
Primary investigator
Associated research group
- Systems Group
- Date:
- 2000-2002
- Theme:
- Pervasive Computing and Networks
- Funding:
- JISC
The IAM group within ECS has undertaken a number of JISC/JCAS short studies in systems and networks security related areas. One such study involved an investigation of gateway-based anti-virus protection methods. As the project progressed, it became evident that anti-virus email gateway products were both very expensive (for licences per host within the site) and predominantly Windows-only.
As a result, we developed an open-source e-mail gateway virus scanner and spam detector, MailScanner, designed to run on a platform such as Linux or Solaris, with an open-source email gateway package such as sendmail. MailScanner is free to use, though you will need to have an appropriate licence for a host-based anti-virus package such as Sophos, Norton or F-Secure. The cost of such a licence is typically a few hundred pounds, against many tens of thousands for a site-scope mail gateway product.
MailScanner also has the bonus feature of spam detection, using public open-relay databases and the impressive SpamAssassin open source spam detector package. The IAM group is undertaking work into the intrusiveness of messaging systems, an area in which such technology may have an important role.
Primary investigators
Associated research groups
- Systems Group
- Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group
- Date:
- 1999-2000
- Themes:
- Agent Based Computing, E-Business Technologies
- Funding:
- Marconi
Many web sites now offer services which blur the boundaries between a number of services - news, publishing, entertainment, shopping and other services are seamlessly bundled into entrepreneurial on-line malls.
Herein lie two very important trends: the increasingly fast speeds at which these sites can re-define their services and re-organise accordingly, and secondly, but less obviously, the inevitable migration towards service deployment following a net-centric component-ware paradigm. For the proponents, purveyors and makers of the agents that populate the on-line business universe, such developments are very important- whether agents are acolytes or architects of the business of on-line business, the potential impact remains large.
Why is this so? Firstly, consider the traditional role of the on-line agent: that of serving a local clientele with global information and resources. Surely, we are all familiar with the difficulties of obtaining information using the Internet. Similar knowledge of and use of services made available by constantly and rapidly changing on-line businesses makes it very difficult for agents to use them without themselves being equally adaptive.
In order to counter this, agents that act as go-betweens for users/customers, businesses with net presence, net-specific on-line businesses, are becoming increasingly common (or at least espoused). Such agents are often referred to as `brokers', `facilitators', `mediators', `matchmakers' and a whole host of behavioural descriptors besides. To avoid confusion we use the term `Intermediary' to refer to all these middle-man agents. The features that Intermediaries provide are by no means established, and few are common. However, there are signs of a shift in perspective in intermediary operations (or at least a developing plurality): on-line information services allow local brokers to globally market local resources for a global clientele. Such a paradigm shift contributes to the growth of an `on-line services' sector. This gives a potential range of perspectives in which intermediaries can focus their operations.
A number of functions are required to serve both the administration of info-businesses, and also to guide users/ customers through info-transactions. One of the mechanisms envisaged to provide these functions in an integrated manner is the concept of the information intermediary. A number of intermediary like services are appearing on the WWW. Many of these are "shopping" agents. Features that intermediaries have been portrayed as providing are too numerous to list here. However we consider the following to be of particular importance since they are each of a general nature to be common to all domains in some form:
- ranges of functions to aid the customer in his dealings with on-line services.
- functions to bridge the gap between what is available and what consumers want, for example - librarians for entertainments (games, video or audio); travel agents; insurance-brokers, etc.
- global trawls of potential services and suppliers, and assessment of the suitability of a selection of information products for the customer.
- functions managing the info-traffic flow between suppliers and customers.
- negotiation of payment schedules for services and commodities.
- monitoring of domain objects for change of some attribute (e.g. price fluctuation, web-page alteration, etc).
Specific features that are pertinent to the information domain are
- Information Search Retrieval and Processing:
- Maintain an Infobase on behalf of the user.
- Profiling of users according to the infobase, e.g. working practices and preferences of customers and suppliers.
- Intelligent prediction of user requirements for information processes.
- Commercial Negotiation
Primary investigator
Secondary investigator
- Phil Turner
Partner
- Marconi Communications
Associated research group
- Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group