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Simulation software is useful in the analysis of new designs for improving power grid resilience, ensuring efficient and reliable power distribution, and developing components that integrate alternative energy sources, such as nuclear fusion and renewables. The ability to simulate multiple physical phenomena in a unified modeling environment gives engineers a deeper understanding of how different components of the grid interact with and affect each other.
For example, when designing the various components of grid infrastructure, such as transformers and transmission lines, multiphysics electromagnetic field analysis is essential for ensuring the safety of the surrounding individuals and environment. Understanding thermal behavior, another phenomenon involving multiple physics, is equally necessary for the design of grid components where heat dissipation and thermal stresses can significantly affect performance and lifespan. Structural and acoustics simulation, meanwhile, is used to predict and mitigate issues like transformer vibration and noise — an important practice for ensuring the longevity and reliability of grid components.
Multiphysics simulation provides critical insight into the complex interactions at play within power grid components, enabling engineers to virtually test and optimize future grid designs.
Electric breakdown and corona discharge analyses are particularly vital for high-voltage transmission lines, as such phenomena can compromise the performance of their insulation systems. Simulation allows development teams to predict where such events are likely to happen, enhancing the design of insulators and other components where the goal is to minimize energy loss and material degradation.
As a real-world example, one leading manufacturer uses the COMSOL Multiphysics® simulation software software to develop magnetic couplings, a noncontact alternative to mechanical transmission that enables power transfer without the inherent friction-based limitations of continual contact. While the advantage of friction-free power transmission means that magnetic couplings have found applications in a broad range of technologies, including offshore wind turbines, these systems must be developed carefully to avoid degradation. By employing highly nonlinear hysteresis curves and applying its own material temperature dependences for magnetic loading, the manufacturer’s development team has successfully used multiphysics simulation to help prevent the permanent magnets from reaching critical temperatures, which can cause irreversible demagnetization and compromise the reliability of the designs. Additionally, due to the diverse nature of use cases for magnetic couplings, the company’s design engineers must be able to interchange shapes and materials of magnets to meet customer requirements without building costly and time-consuming prototypes — rendering multiphysics simulation a powerful approach for characterizing configurations, providing virtual prototypes of their designs, and ultimately reducing the price for customers while remaining vigilant on fine details.
These examples show just a few of the ways that coupling multiple interacting physics within a single model can lead to successful simulation of real-world phenomena and thereby provide insights into current and future designs.
Lightning strikes a tower’s shielded wires. The induced voltage on the three-phase conductors is computed using electromagnetic field analysis.COMSOL
Improving Reliability with Digital Twins & Simulation Apps
Engineering teams can also use simulation technology to create more efficient, effective, and sustainable power grids by creating digital twins. A digital twin contains a high-fidelity description of a physical product, device, or process — from the microscopic to the macroscopic level — that closely mirrors its real counterpart. For every application, the digital twin is continuously receiving information, ensuring an up-to-date and accurate representation.
With this technology, grid operators and their equipment suppliers can predict which components are most likely to fail, enabling them to schedule maintenance and replacement more efficiently and thereby improving grid reliability. Digital twins can be made for equipment ranging from power sources including solar cells and wind turbines to power distribution systems and battery energy storage.
An offshore wind farm where lightning strikes one of the turbine blades. The electric field on the turbine towers, seawater, and seabed is shown.COMSOL
The most recent modeling and simulation technology provides power and energy companies with tools for creating digital twins in the form of standalone simulation apps, which significantly increases the number of users who have access to advanced simulation technology. By including only relevant functionality in a standalone simulation app, colleagues with no modeling and simulation experience can utilize this technology without needing guidance from the modeling specialist. Furthermore, the use of data-driven surrogate models in simulation apps enables near-instantaneous evaluation of what would otherwise be time-consuming simulations — which means that simulation technology can now be used in a real-world setting.
Digital twins, in the form of standalone apps, bring the power of simulation to the field, where grid operators can utilize real-time performance information to ensure grid reliability.
For instance, one organization that works with local power companies to analyze equipment maintenance and failure built a custom app based on a multiphysics model it had developed to predict cable faults and improve troubleshooting efficiency. While engineers have been utilizing simulation in labs for decades, cable failure occurs in the field, and onsite troubleshooting personnel are responsible for assessing these failure conditions. With this in mind, an engineer at the organization developed the simulation app using the Application Builder in COMSOL Multiphysics®.
Temperature distribution in a battery energy storage system (BESS).COMSOL
The app features relevant parameters that troubleshooting personnel with no prior simulation experience can easily modify. Field technicians enter cable data and select the type of fault, which modifies the multiphysics model in real time, allowing the app to evaluate and output the data necessary to understand the condition that led to the fault. The app then produces a reported potential and electric field, which leads the technicians to an informed decision regarding whether they need to replace or repair the cable. Following the app’s successful deployment, the engineer who developed it stated, “The simulation app plays a key role in cable maintenance. It makes the work of our field technicians more efficient by empowering them to confidently assess and repair faults.”
Routine physical tests of grid equipment cannot fully reflect conditions or determine failure types in many situations, as a large number of complex factors must be considered, such as cable structure and material, impurities in the cable, voltage fluctuation, and operating conditions and environments. As a result, simulation has proven to be indispensable in many cases for collecting accurate cable health assessments — and now in the form of custom apps, it is more accessible than ever.
Generating Nuclear Solutions
Simulation has also been heavily integrated into the design process of various components related to the nuclear industry. For example, simulation was used to help design generator circuit breakers (GCBs) for nuclear power plants. GCBs must be reliable and able to maintain performance even after long periods of inactivity. The COMSOL Multiphysics® software can be used to improve the current-carrying capacity of the GCBs, which can offer protection from current surges and provide dependable electricity generation.
The design of nuclear fusion machines like tokamaks has also benefitted from the use of simulation. These devices must be able to withstand high heat fluxes and plasma disruptions. COMSOL Multiphysics® has been used to help engineers predict the effects of these problems and come up with design solutions, such as adding a structural support system that can help reduce stress and survive challenging conditions.
Engineering the Grid of Tomorrow
The development of next-generation power grid systems is a complex and dynamic process that requires safe, reliable, and affordable testing. Multiphysics simulation technology can play a major role in future innovations for this industry, enabling engineers to anticipate and analyze the complex interactions happening inside these devices while building upon the existing infrastructure to address the demands of modern-day consumption.
COMSOL Multiphysics is a registered trademark of COMSOL AB.
