Creating Innovative Laboratory Systems For Engineering & Technical Education
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    Power Systems Electrical Engineering Lab Equipment

    Are you looking for something with WOW factor that will grab your students’ attention? We have some systems you should check out. What are you interested in?

    Do you teach Electric Power Production?

    You’re in luck—we build 3 different electrical generation systems that can really give students a hands-on education.

    Wind

    Wind Turbine Lab

    Our newest offering, the WindLabTM Wind Turbine Electrical Generation System, is a scale three-phase wind generation station. Students thinking about a renewable energy career will certainly gravitate to this outstanding system. WindLabTM is equipped with its own programmable wind source. This wind drives an industry standard 3-bladed rotor system which drives a scale three phase generator through a step-up planetary gear box. Students can observe and study the sinusoidal voltage and current wave patterns in real time. They can adjust loading on each electric phase to see what happens to the true voltage and current wave forms. They can also compare those wave forms against the RMS voltage and current readings and learn about the difference between the two. Furthermore, they have the opportunity to learn about excitation voltage and how that works (WindLab uses an electromagnetic rotor in the generator, not permanent magnets). Students can actually see how excitation voltage is transferred to the rotating core through a slip ring connection. All of this is captured and displayed in real time on the system’s LabView generated Virtual Instrument Panel and National Instruments Data Acquisition System. If you’re thinking of buying anything for your lab, this is the unit to get. It’s clean, attractive, not smelly or obnoxiously noisy and will really teach the principles of three phase power generation. Imagine what prospective students to your school will think when they see it. Be ready for an influx of interest!

    Gas Turbine Electrical Generation

    Gas Turbo Shaft Lab For Power Generation Experiments

    We developed a pretty serious jet engine-powered electrical generation system a couple of years ago called the TurboGenTM Gas Turbine Electrical Generation System. This was in response to researchers who were developing bio-fuels and wanted to do a better job of quantifying power output of specific formulations they were developing. The cool part about all of this is TurboGen is a miniature lab-sized electrical generation peaking plant that has attracted a lot of additional attention to a number of engineering disciplines, including aero, mechanical and , of course, electrical. It might seem to be a bit of overkill for EE students to be working with such an intense system, but what better way to prepare them for a real world job setting. The jet engine drives a 2 kW generator that features operator-controlled variable excitation on the rotor. We kept loading of the system simple by going with a fixed resistive load. Just like WindLab, TurboGenTM is equipped with a LabView generated Virtual Instrument Panel and National Instruments Data Acquisition System for real time data observation and future analysis.

    Steam Turbine Electrical Generation

    Steam Turbine Lab For Power Generation

    For those students who may wish to work in base load electrical generation plants (even if they don’t know it yet), our RankineCyclerTM Steam Turbine Power System would be a great choice to learn about steam-powered electrical generation. RankineCycler features an ASME certified super-heated steam boiler which drives a one-stage steam turbine. The turbine drives a single phase electrical generator. The waste steam goes through an air-cooled condenser. The on-board National Instruments data acquisition system and LabView generated virtual instrument panel provide excellent data for monitoring and analysis purposes. We’ve heard from many professors that a real key to this education system is to have the students use it and then tour a full-sized steam turbine electrical generation station. Once they get over the shock of the size and the mind-bending amounts of piping, motors, controls, etc., at the full-scale facility, they remember their lab work and start asking where the boiler is? Sometimes there are 6 units, but the boiler is found. Then they know there is a turbine. They search and find there is more than one of these. It goes on from there. Consequently, a portion of the student group comes out of that experience with their AHAH moment—“this is the industry I would like to work to work in”.