Roberto Felicetti is a PhD Candidate at the Division of Electricity of Uppsala University in Sweden. He graduated earlier in Electromechanical Constructions at University La Sapienza Rome and worked in the automotive industry as brushless machines designer. In 2016, he completed his second M. Sc. in Electrical Engineering at Uppsala University with the thesis “Field current control finalized to the damping of rotor oscillations and to the alternative start in synchronous machines”.

His fields of interest are among others: power electronics and electric drives.

Magnetic Unbalanced Pull Compensation

PhD Project: Alternative excitation systems finalized to the generator self-start

Roberto Felicetti conducts research under WP4. The main goal of his PhD work is to evaluate rotor concepts for salient pole synchronous machines which can integrate more additional functions at the same time such as unbalanced magnetic pull compensation, alternative rotor start for pumped storage, load-taking on run and emulation of damping bars performances by field current control.

The research, which aims to simplify the construction of hydropower synchronous generators and to reduce their power losses, is going to be performed and tested on a small scale 60 kVA machine available at Uppsala University.

The study will focus on design, simulation, construction and testing of different electromechanical rotor concepts. Moreover, the need for fast current control in highly inductive rotor windings by means of power electronics switches requires the project to explore and to prevent potential breakdown or partial discharge effects by establishing criteria for a safe and robust rotor windings insulation coordination.

FEM simulation of a rotor concept under load

Simulation of rotor winding overvoltage distribution