I am currently a Research Associate at the University of Durham.
Many, old, electromechanical protective relays are installed in the network. They are close to, or beyond, their “best before” date. Whether they should be replaced, or an inspection and maintenance program could be sufficient, is unknown. Replacing all the relays would be expensive, and even just servicing them all would cost long outage times.
I am examining a sample of the relays currently installed to evaluate their initial conditions. Subsequently, A.L.T. (Accelerated Life Testing) conditioning techniques will be applied, and the effects measured, with the aim of understanding the impact of several ageing agents, quantifying the useful remaining time, and guiding inspection and maintenance procedures.
The ageing factors include: atmospheric pollution, temperature variations, humidity, chemicals contained in the protective cases.
Relay faults mainly consists of wrong electrical characteristics and failure to start.
Ageing techniques investigated include: gas chamber, oven, temperature chamber.
My Ph.D.’s thesis
Acoustic emission characterisation of damage in CFRP composites, University of Southampton, 2007
My Master’s thesis
Analisi delle Forze Rotodinamiche in Turbomacchine Cavitanti, Università di Pisa, 2003
Publications / Conferences
M. R. Venturini Autieri and J. M. Dulieu-Barton, Initial Studies for AE Characterisation of Damage in Composite Materials, Advanced Materials Research, Vols. 13–14 (2006) pp. 273–278
L. d’Agostino and M. R. Venturini Autieri, Rotordynamic Fluid Forces on Whirling and Cavitating Radial Impellers, in Proc. Fifth International Symposium on Cavitation (cav2003), Osaka, Japan, Nov 2003
L. d’Agostino and M. R. Venturini Autieri, Three-Dimensional Analysis of Rotordynamic Fluid Forces on Whirling and Cavitating Finite-Lenght Inducers, in Proc. The 9th of International Symposium on Transport Phenomena and Dynamics of Rotating Machinery, Honolulu, Hawaii, Feb 2002