EE463 Power Electronics

Lecture Hours

In the lectures we will be using a flipped classroom concept. The students are required to prepare ahead for the lectures (by watching course videos, reading handouts etc).

Course Assistants

Ogün Altun ogun@metu.edu.tr (Coordinator, Office: C-114)

Grading:

1 Midterm: 15%
Laboratory: 20% (Attending to all lab sessions is compulsory)
Homeworks: 20% (+some bonus for good homeworks)
Final: 25%
Term Project: %15 (+some bonus for good projects)
Participation: 5% (quizzes, pop-up questions, active participation)

Important Note: Any of the following actions will result in NA grade:

Not submitting at least three homeworks
Not submitting a laboratory report
Not submitting the term project report
Not attending to the final exam

Presentations:

In 2024, the syllabus of EE463 is considerably modified, the tentative schedule is as follows:

Presentations for 2024

Presentations will be added to keysan.me/ee463 weekly and lecture videos will be added to Odtuclass and Youtube (please also use the other sources given below):

Tentative Outline

Week#1 : Info about the course
Week#1 : Introduction
Week#2: Power Electronics Basics
Week#2: Single Phase Diode Rectifiers
Week#3: Three Phase Diode Rectifiers
Week#4: Power Semiconductor Devices
Week#5: Review of DC/DC Converters
Week#6: Regulated Power Supplies
Week#8: Magnetic Design for Power Electronics
Week#10: Half/Full Bridge Converters
Week#11: Thermal Design
Week#12: Snubbers
Week#12: Harmonics, Filters
Week#14: Isolation, Gate Drivers

Presentations for 2023

Week#1 : Info about the course
Week#1 : Introduction
Week#2: Power Electronics Basics
Week#2: Single Phase Diode Rectifiers
Week#4: Three Phase Diode Rectifiers
Week#5: Power Semiconductor Devices
Week#6: Single Phase Controlled Rectifiers
Week#7: Three Phase Controlled Rectifiers
Week#8: Other Converter Topologies
Week#9: Introduction to DC/DC Converters
Week#10: Other DC/DC converters
Week#11: Thermal Design
Week#12: Snubbers
Week#12: Harmonics, Filters
Week#14: Isolation, Gate Drivers

Projects:

Projects will be announced from the ee463 GitHub Page of the course. Please follow it regularly.

Brief Info:

EE463 and EE464 are the two core courses for power electronics and electric machines option. In these courses, you will learn about basics of power electronic topologies, components and control techniques. In the first semester we will focus on AC-DC converters (rectifiers), whereas in the second semester it will be mainly about DC-DC converters and inverters. You will find chance to design and implement fundamental circuit topologies and get understanding of other design factors such as selection of switches, passive components within electrical and thermal constraints. There will a hardware project to implement.

Important Notes:

In this course I will apply learning by doing, thus I expect (and encourage) you to actively participate to the lectures. Here are the important points:

There are no stupid questions.
Even if there is, asking a stupid question doesn’t mean that you are stupid.
Studying is an activity of students, not of lecturers.

Course Objectives:

At the end of course you will be able to:

Understand the fundamental principles of power electronics topologies.
Analyze and design controlled and uncontrolled AC/DC rectifiers (1ph and 3ph)
Select commercial power switches and passive components for various applications.
Evaluate and compare various options for power electronic topologies
Use a few power electronic software (e.g. Simulink, Altium Designer,KiCad, Autodesk Fusion 360 etc.)
Prepare design reports and use version control system (GitHub) to build your online portfolio.
Design and implement a hardware project.

Required Background

EE361 and EE212 are prerequisite for this course, and I strongly advise you to review the topics covered in these courses and the circuit classes in the very early weeks.

Assuming you are getting the core courses from the power electronics and electric machines option(EE462, EE463, EE464), you will need at least three more courses. If you are planning to continue your career in power engineering area I advise you the following courses (in the order of preference):

EE406 Laboratory of Feedback Control Systems
EE498 Control System Design and Simulation
EE402 Discrete Time Systems
EE471 Power Sytem Analysis-I
EE447 Introduction to Microprocessors
EE407 Process Control

Textbooks & References:

These books are available in METU Bookstore: ODTUDEN. I suggest you to get at least one of these books, not only for this course but also for as a reference in your professional career.

Power Electronics: Converters, Applications, and Design, N. Mohan, T. Undeland, W. Robbins, Wiley
Power Electronics, Daniel W. Hart, Mc Graw Hill
Cyril W. Lander, Power Electronics, McGraw-Hill (optional for detailed info on rectifiers)

Useful Links:

MIT Power Electronics Lecture Notes
NPTEL Power Electronics Course
University of Colorado Introduction to Power Electronics
YouTube, Power Electronics by Ned Mohan
YouTube, Fundamentals of Power Electronics by Katherine Kim
YouTube, Power Electronics by Dr. Ferdowsi

Useful Software Tutorials

Here are some to get you started. If you think a link should be here, just let me know.

MATLAB/Simulink

Altium Designer

KiCad

KiCad is an open source PCB design software which is offered in their website for free.
Introduction to KiCad
Quick Start to KiCad
Video Tutorials

Autodesk Fusion 360

PSIM

Notes on Homeworks

In this course you will complete several short homeworks, and one hardware project. Homeworks will be performed in groups (2 people). However, the groups will be assigned randomly, and will be shuffled for each project. You will be able to choose your group partners only for the hardware project.
I would like you to use a version control system for your project. Please check keysan.me/okst/ for details.
You will submit your projects using GitHub, so please open an account (preferably using your real name, as it will be your online portfolio when you graduated), and complete a few tutorials and learn the basics as soon as possible.
You will not only submit the latest version of your projects, but I would like to see the intermediate stages, and you’ll be also graded with number of commits, so please start working on the projects in the early days.
In the course you will learn to use Simulink, KiCad, Altium Designer, Autodesk Fusion 360. Please set up these software and start learning them as soon as possible.

Homeworks Grading

Number of Commits: 15%: The number of edits of your project files as seen from the contributors list. For example, if you start making your project in the last few days, you’ll get no credit. If you start early and continue editing your files, you’ll get full credit. The project topics are not easy, so this is a way to encourage you to start early and work regularly.
Level of Information: 60%: The detail level of your designs (see requirements above), and the accuracy of your calculations.
Report Quality: 25%: Text explaining your design decisions, quality of your figures, citing relevant studies and your conclusion section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can’t I choose my partner for the homeworks? Next year you will graduate and start working in companies or in research institutes. However, in your professional life you will not be able to choose your colleagues, and you will have to work with many people with different personal characters and backgrounds. Unfortunately, team working is a neglected aspect in our department and I hope in this course you will improve your competence to work with different people. Furthermore, once you begin your professional career you will see that your personal network is one of your valuable assets, so please consider these projects as a chance to have connection with 5-6 extra people, which all will be working in different companies in the following years.
But, there is my high school friend, whom I partnered with the all laboratories in the past so far… Then, it is you that needs to meet with new people most.
But, I do all of the work, and my partner does not help at all. It is not fair! That’s why you have to use version control system. Each student will be graded separately based on their contributions and number of commits. If one of partners did not contribute at all, he/she will get zero.
What happens if I don’t submit these homeworks? If you don’t submit three homeworks or more, you will get NA.