Events – Sterkstroomdispuut

Excursion to Royal SMIT Transformers, Nijmegen

Transformers, small or big play a critical role in the electricity market on a daily basis. The scaling of voltage and current from a lower to higher value or vice-versa is what plays a major role in reducing line losses. A very big manufacturing company in this sector is the Royal SMIT Transformers which is one of the leading manufacturers of medium sized transformers worldwide.

Founded in 1913, the company has clients all over the world. The easy access to ports in Nijmegen where it is situated gives it a competitive edge in exporting large sized transformers and hence have a larger scope in experimenting new designs.

On February 12^th, 2020 SSD along with DSD Waldur (the power engineering dispuut of TU Eindhoven) was invited to visit the factory of Royal SMIT Transformers at Nijmegen. All it took was a ninety minutes’ drive from Delft to Nijmegen to get started with the excursion. Our group consisted of eleven students from Delft and Eindhoven who were all looking forward to this.

The excursion to Royal SMIT Transformers had a lot of activities. A brief talk about the company was followed up with some very interesting research done by the company. This was followed by lunch and then the much awaited “guided” factory tour. The factory tour gave us an insight into each, and every step involved in manufacturing a transformer. From the laminating of the layered steel transformer cores to the winding of the paper-wrapped copper conductors around wooden frames, no assembly step was left to our imagination . The distinct task division which enables the overall process to become efficient was very evident. This was followed by a small talk about the testing of transformers once the manufacturing and assembling is done.

The whole day was very exciting and being able to watch the actual transformers being built in many different stages was informative. The employees were kind enough to answer our queries taking time off their schedule.

SSD is thankful to Royal SMIT Transformers for organising a fun as well as an intuitive excursion.

Photo post the factory tour in the company

Christmas Lunch

This year’s Christmas Lunch was amazingly popular. A lot more people joined than expected, a total of 90 people gathered in the High Voltage lab! Perhaps everyone wanted to take a last look as the lab will be completely renovated starting January 2019, but probably everyone just wanted to enjoy a good time together and have a luxury lunch.

Thank you all for your enthusiasm! Some pictures of the event can be found here as well.

Excursion to ELEQ

In Dutch, there is the saying “to measure is to know”, but all over the world power system engineers know the importance of current measurements. With some of the obvious applications being the acquisition of data and power flow analysis, current measurements are also used for protecting the system against different kinds of faults.

Even though not all power system engineers know Dutch, they all do know the Dutch company ELEQ, for the very same reason as mentioned above. ELEQ designs and builds current transformers, devices that can transform a large current in one conductor to a small, measurable current in the second conductor (See header image for an example).

On October 3rd, the SSD was invited to visit the engineering office and first factory of ELEQ in Steenwijk, Overijssel. As a pleasant surprise, our group of 21 did not only consist of students but also two alumni, of which one is an ex-board member of the SSD and son of ELEQ’s general manager! Thank you Reinout for sharing your experiences of the path from an EPE student up to graduation, and what the world of engineering has to offer.

The excursion to ELEQ consisted of a full programme of activities. A relatively short talk about the company’s business allowed us to continue quickly to the technical parts; a very interesting lecture about the principles of current transformers which would be just a little too specific to be taught at the university, and therefore a great addition. This was followed by a factory tour where the fabrication of current transformers, from small ones to very large ones used in high voltage switchgear, takes place. We ended at the testing area where the latest innovation of ELEQ was explained and, naturally, an experiment was carried out that produced a lot of sparks.

The whole day led to the most exciting part of the excursion: designing, building and testing our own current transformers! With some basic requirements and the equations from the lecture in the morning session, the number of turns, transformer core, and wire thickness could be determined. One of the most experienced factory workers then wound the wire around the core, and finally, we passed by two testing stations to ensure that the current transformer worked as required.

Thank you ELEQ for this unique day, the smooth organization and the beautiful souvenir of a current transformer!

Siemens Study Tour

From May 5th until May 10th 2018 the Sterkstroomdispuut visited Berlin, the center of technology when it comes to electrical engineering. Our main purpose on this trip was to visit the Siemens AG factories, but we also visited General Electric and Menzel Motors. Weekend in Berlin was awesome with visit to TV tower, museums, parks and other interesting places in Berlin.

Siemens Lunch Lecture

SSD – Siemens Lunch lecture was an interesting lunch discussion with presentations about opportunities at Siemens. The highlight of the Siemes’s study tour to Siemens factories in Berin was also given by the guest speaker, Gert-Jan Van Raamsdonk. Thank you for participating! Looking forward to the amazing trip to Berlin with you. Register at ETV desk for participation.

SSD Lunch Lecture – Wireless Charging

We had an SSD lunch lecture on March 28, 2018 (Wednesday) from 12:45-13-30. This lecture wass on “Wireless Charging” and the speaker was Prasanth Venugopal who is currently working as a Senior Electrical Engineer at Qualcomm.

In addition to the lecture on wireless charging, the speaker talked about the best way to handle graduation projects and survival tips in case of too much work load.

TenneT & DNVGL

The excursion to DNVGL and TenneT on 22.02.2018 along with ETV and DELFT S.E.A was indeed a great success.There was a tour of the high power lab at DNVGL where they test circuit breakers, transformers, and other equipment. In the afternoon the excursion continued to TenneT where interactive sessions regarding future plans of the Dutch grid and sustainable energy were conducted.Thank you for your active participation.

SSD Social Drink

The social drink organized by SSD was a success. EPE MSC Student, professors and phD students wer present to socialise with one another and enjoy their drinks. Thank you all for participating in SSD social drinks which commenced on Thursday. Looking forward for your participation in the upcoming SSD events! Good luck with your upcoming quarter!