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Research ProjectsStudent projects are carried out in the following six broad, overlapping areas representing multiple facets of the Grainger CEME. Ph.D. students commonly work in several areas during their student tenure at Illinois. Students have the opportunity to teach and develop project leadership skills.Motor Design, Operation, and ControlMotor design today can be performed at the system level, taking into account particular operating requirements and control opportunities. At the CEME, we seek answers to fundamental questions about the best use of materials, opportunities for new control concepts, and innovations in manufacturing. Improved steels, permanent magnets, insulation materials, modeling and simulation, and control methods are at the heart of revolutionary changes in electric machinery. Motors designed to operate specifically with electronic controls are leading to new possibilities. We are developing ways to make motors more efficient, more powerful, smaller, easier to build, and well matched to their applications. We plan to develop tools for designers that support these developments.
Past Projects 2004-2005 Projects
Automotive and Advanced ApplicationsApplications of motors are expanding rapidly. A typical automobile built today has more than one hundred electric motors, plus many electromechanical sensors and actuators. At high power levels, motors drive electric and hybrid cars. The CEME supports projects that expand the usefulness of electric machines and electromechanical devices, and seeks to promote new ideas for high-performance applications.
Past Projects 2004-2005 Projects
Large Student Team Design ProjectsMultidisciplinary team projects are the way engineering gets done in real life. The CEME provides opportunities and seed funding for students at work on large projects in energy and electromechanics areas. Undergraduate students in the College of Engineering are able to make large team projects a part of their curriculum. The Center is a sponsor of the international Future Energy Challenge, a major student competition organized by the IEEE. Through the Challenge program, we seek to encourage student innovation and educational excellence around the world.
Past Projects Curriculum and Laboratory DevelopmentLaboratory and classroom-based education in electric machinery and electromechanics is one of the primary missions of the CEME. The Center builds on a history of leadership at the University of Illinois, with outstanding facilities and opportunities for hands-on projects. New concepts such as a flexible open-frame linear machine, adaptable benches that support direct experiments with almost any type of motor, and undergraduate laboratories in power electronics have been developed by the Center and its antecedents. Today, we are creating broad courses related to system and device design, as well as specialized hardware for lab work in all our areas of interest.Past Projects Advanced Research ProjectsAdvances in the design and application of electric machinery will require innovation in control of electromechanical devices, modeling techniques, computer-aided design tools, energy processing systems and methods, and dispersed systems. The CEME supports basic research and the development of new ideas in topic areas most likely to impact the design and use of machines. Tools, such as dynamic visualization of the magnetic fields in a rotating machine, are also supported. The objective is to build a fundamental base for advances across all areas of electromechanics.
Past Projects 2004-2005 Projects
MEMS and Microelectronics for Motor and Energy ApplicationsFuture power electronics, motion control, and communication devices require high efficiency with highly compact and low-cost passive components such as capacitors, inductors, resonators, and relays. At the CEME, we are exploring microtechnology components that will enable future power electronic and electromechanical systems. Micromachining technology has undergone rapid development during the past decade and has been successfully applied to a number of sensors and actuator products. MEMS devices are being applied in radical ways to energy conversion processes.
Past Projects
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