40 Principles Applied to Electric Power/Dist.?

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Just a small question - does anyone know if an article about the 40 principles applied to electrical power, electrical power distribution or pure electrical engineering has been written? Thanks.

Some TRIZ inventive principles are often considered as too general or too abstract. Even the understanding of the parameters is not an evidence. So, you not only need accurate definitions of these elements, but also a bridge between heuristics and technical solutions. Either you find a list (I would also be interested if you find one) or you consider to link the 40 principles with scientific effects and technical solutions. If you are interested in this last option, I may help you with more detailed information and some results. Feel free to contact me directly! info(at)cm-consulting.ch.

Claude, thank you for replying to my inquiry; I have followed up writing to your email account. Power electrical examples and especially those concerning electrification and power distribution/generation is what I´m looking for. I got from Ellen a wonderful input to actually have my customers (who are in the electrification biz) write the examples with some introduction from my side, which gives more functionality with little more resources. Great idea... anyone reading this who can contribute I´ll be very thankful if you do.

hi,

 i am prof of mechanical engg  from India and i am utilising this novel tool in the field of my own domain and started applying in non technical also, for the last six months i am also searching and doing brain storming for 40 principle in electrical field it is need of the  hour ,it is our resposbility and gratitude(to the father of TRIZ) to work on electrical domain.  

Thank you Professor. If you would like to share your materials and/or contacting me directly, please feel free to do so. randallmarin(at)ismarin.net. On your comments about our responsibility and the memory of the Master, you are so right! No day has its end without having me think about that and happily, do something. I am working on improving cancer detection via TRIZ and is a great joy.

Ok, lets think,

principle 1: Segmentation

To improve the reliability of a powergrid one can use segmentation in several ways. 1. divide the grid in small grids. These connected minigrids that can adapt the routing of power. Every minigrid has its own collection of electricity generators. This is allready applied often.

2. Divide the grid in parallel grids. It can be applied even to the lowest level. E.g. I have three main electra groups in my house for power supply and if there is a malfunction in the local powerhub all three groups fail so I am without power. If there were three parallel powergrids I would not without power.

A special version is an "emergency powergrid" that supplies e.g. 100 Watt per household if the normal grid fails.

3. dividing the powerlines itself in multiple lines. Allready seen in high voltage lines.

4. divide the type of power generators from one type to several different type so one gets less dependant on a single type of fuel.

principle 2: Taking out

1. take out the hot lines Many devices in our homes just require 12Volt or even less, so why not provide a separate 12 Volt (DC) grid just like in cars. No need for all those convertors. Could use the same sockettype I think

2. Take out the hot of the lines. Why does a wallsocket provides 230Volt when nothing is connected? By making the socket intelligent enough to see when it is plugged it would make electricity much saver. In an even more intelligent version a light bulb would ask the wallsocket for 100 Watt and the wallsocket could allow it or not. The wallsocket would first ask it to the central powerhub in the house, the house hub knows how much power is allready used in the house. Would save some fuses :)

Principle 3: Local Quality

1. Use powerlines to distribute information. devices to transport TCP/IP packets can be bought allready. The goverment could use the powergrid for emergency broadcasts. All TV receivers and radio's would have a chip to detect the signal and would automatically tune to the emergency channel. How to make this hacker save is another question?

2. Use powerlines as an antenna In the search for ET we listen to radio signals from space. For me the largest antenna is the powergrid, one only needs to extract the signals.

3. Switch as nightlight Build a led (minimum energy) in a switch so they provide a bit of light. No problems to find the lightswitch.

Principle 4: Asymmetry

1. Use different fuses. Use a much faster fuse for the childrens bedroom.

2. Use different voltage per room Use 12 Volt only for the childrens bedroom as stated earlier.

Sofar some ideas for mapping the first four of the 40 principles to powergrid and electra distribution. Is this a bit what you are looking for?

regards, rob tillaart

Hello Rob. I'm looking for real examples, and you provided some here. Thanks for the inputs. randall

Hi Randall, Another try for some more TRIZ priciples. Are you in the power distribution bizz? Just a question. We could write an article together for the TRIZ journal based upon this raw material. Let me know.

regards, rob.tillaart [at] gmail

principle 5: Merging

For a merging example I go to a supersystem. Generating electricity results in waste heat of system. Reusing this waste heat can be done in many ways.

1. Heating houses/offices in the neighbourhood 2. Preheating hot water for houses 3. Use to defrost roads

Generating electricity often results in excess Carbondioxide CO2. Reusing can be done by piping it to greenhouses so plants grow faster. This is done in the Netherlands.

Principle 6: Universality

Make a part or object perform multiple functions; eliminate the need for other parts.

The high towers for the high voltage electricity lines can be made larger so every tower can carry - a windturbine => generate electricity - a webcam => for service - a radio beacon => airline - a internet wireless lan router - a mobile phone transmitter - a GPS beacon Not every tower should have this all but it offers extra services generate electricity - a webcam => for service - a radio beacon => airline - a internet wireless lan router - a mobile phone transmitter - a GPS beacon Not every tower should have this all but it offers extra services generate electricity - a webcam => for service - a radio beacon => airline - a internet wireless lan router - a mobile phone transmitter - a GPS beacon Not every tower should have this all but it offers extra services for service - a radio beacon => airline - a internet wireless lan router - a mobile phone transmitter - a GPS beacon Not every tower should have this all but it offers extra services for service - a radio beacon => airline - a internet wireless lan router - a mobile phone transmitter - a GPS beacon Not every tower should have this all but it offers extra services airline - a internet wireless lan router - a mobile phone transmitter - a GPS beacon Not every tower should have this all but it offers extra services airline - a internet wireless lan router - a mobile phone transmitter - a GPS beacon Not every tower should have this all but it offers extra services

The power lines itself can be used for high frequency communication signals.

Principle 7: Nested doll

Difficult one. ...think ...think..

230 Volt inside 150.000Volt? Normally nearby powerlines e.g. 150.000 Volt are in phase (or 120/240 degrees shifted). If two nearby powerlines with the same phase are shifted a little bit one could create 230 Volt e.g. for repair crews. Think it's not a nice sinuswave but might still be useful. To far out of the box?

Tower within a tower? If the tower's are made like a sliding ladder the repair crew do not need to work at such high altitudes with all risks and specialized vehicles. In extremus they even can work on groundlevel.

Principle 8: Anti-weight

Another difficult one. What is the weight of a powergrid? - towers - anti-tower? - lines - antiline? - generator - antigenerator? One typical problem is that in a (winter)storm towers can be blown over. And if one goes often a whole row of towers go flat beause the lines pull on the next tower. And that is because they have a fixed connection. AHA!! If we replace the fixed connection with one that is based upon a counterweight that hangs in the tower then this tower cannot pull the next one by means of the lines. This could reduce the amount of towers that fall like domino stones

principle 9: Preliminary anti-action

The concept of fuses is a well known anti-action. Change a conductor in an insulator.

Pulling towers by the powerlines is an unwanted action. If the powerlines are partly rolled up like a spring it could strech maybe just enough to prevent the next tower falling.

principle 10. Preliminary action Powerlines do break: Create them in such a way that e.g. the powerlines will break on a predefined place so the damage is minimal or easiest to repair. Think it should break first near the tower providing the current. That way the line that falls down is not hot anymore. don't know enough about powerlines if this is possible but it would save lifes.

Tower do fall in storms. Create defined weak spots in the tower constructon so that a maximum of the broken tower can be reused to rebuild it. Use as much identical parts, same length etc.

So far for today ..

Excuses for the bad layout, some parts appear too many times but at least nothing is missing ;) regards, rob

Nested Doll :

Use power line as communication line, use HF transformers to feed in and out signals

Indeed you can see the current as a signal and one can create a signal in a signal == nested doll!

thanx,

rob tillaart

Lets "focus some more braincells" on this challenge

Principle 11 Cushion in advance

Prepare emergency means beforehand to compensate the relatively low reliability of an object.

Provide diesel generators or large battery packs in vulnerable areas. This is already done in hospitals. Also farmers in the countryside often do have alternative energy supply.

Z-folding the powerlines in a tower: This provides extra length to ”stretch” when needed.

Principle 12 Equipotentiality

In a potential field limit position changes

Make wind forces equal: Imagine a power tower that can rotate itself or its parts to minimize the catch of the wind.

Principle 13 Do it in reverse

Invert actions to solve the problem.

Plug into a socket loads a spring. When the plug is pulled the spring unloads and pushes the plug out of the socket. This prevents dangling plugs that are potentially dangerous.

Automatic fuse that switches on after a certain time to see if the short circuit is over.

Instead of isolating the lines from the towers, isolate the tower from the ground.

Powerlines rotate slowly in the wind to prevent ice?

Principle 14 Spheroidality

Replace linear parts with curved parts, flat surfaces with spherical surfaces, and cube shapes with ball shapes.

Use round pipes to build power tower so the wind has less grip on the tower.

Give the diameter of the powerlines a droplet(?) shap so water flows faster off.

Drill mini dimples in the powerlines so wind has less grip on them (like in golf balls).

Principle 15 Dynamicity

Allow or design the characteristics of an object, external environment, or process to change to be optimal or to find an optimal operating condition..

Plug with a socket on the back. If this plug is put into a socket there is still a socket available.

Powerlines that can extend themselves to cope with pulling forces.

Isolators between tower and line that can extend to give the wire extra length when needed.

Plug for a socket with a flexible gooseneck. Can be used in places difficult to reach or with less space.

Principle 16 Partial or Excessive action

When 100% is difficult to reach, slightly less or more may be sufficient.

Auto adjusting fuse: if the fuse reaches its maximum power it decreases the voltage.

If a device plugs in the socket gradually build up the voltage instead of giving all power at once. The socket can measure the power behavior.

Switch that when put off will stay on for a few seconds, sort of timer so one has some light left to reach a door or so. It can also slowly dim the light to zero instead off a binary on/off.

Principle 17 Transition into a new dimension

Move an object into another dimension or add an extra dimension.

Powerlines over a river: Lay them under the river (tunnel).

Lay the powerlines in the river (bottom) and pull them up afterwards, no need to keep them dry during construction.

Construct power towers in such a way that they prefer to fall sideways. This will minimize the additional build up of tension on the powerlines. Therfor the chance of multiple towers falling will be far less.

Principle 18 Vibration

Use oscillation.

Use the wind to vibrate lines to wipe of ice. Place “specialized wings” on certain places that can induce an oscillation.

Vibrating fuses so one can feel in the dark which one is broken or still functioning. Also usable for the blind. Currently one can feel the heat which is molecular vibration but one must act fast otherwise the broken fuse is cooled down.

Principle 19 Periodic action

Use periodic or pulsating actions instead of continuous action.

Drop the power grid once a month as an exercise for the consumers. E.g. the first day of the month or at random (factories won't like that). People will react by keeping enough batteries etc.

Drop the power grid at night. People should sleep by then.

If too much power is drawn from the grid, provide electricity only periodically. Well known strategy in some cities.

Street lighting only needs to work when people pass by. Energysaver.

Periodic preventive maintenance for the power grid.

Principle 20 Continuity of useful actions

Try to perform 100% all the time, eliminate idle time.

Use (giant) flywheels or battery packs to keep electricity flowing. The UPS is a well known example.

A windturbine with a variomatic gearbox to optimize the generation of electricity.

Build powerplants in pairs so they backup each other.

---- OK, the first 20 principles covered generating some better and some worse ideas. just 20 to go ;)

regards, Rob

PS, Merry Christmas and a innovative new year to everyone.

Hi Randall,

Here are additional ideas of mapping TRIZ principles on electric distribution and the power grid and related things. Still 10 to go but still one day left before new year :)

Happy 2009 for everyone Rob

Principle 21 Skip or Rushing through

Conduct certain process steps at high speed.

Too difficult, lets skip it …. Ok be serious ;)

Skip the power-cable; Transport electricity by means of laser light or microwaves where usage of cable is difficult, not feasable or even not allowed.

Transport the status of the towers, cables, transformers, connectivity etc by means of a sort of wireless network. It might be fast enough to act in case of emergency.

===

Principle 22 Convert harm into benefit

Eliminating a harmful action by adding another harmful action.

Generating electricity results in waste heat of system. Reusing this waste heat can be done in many ways.

Use it for the heating of houses and offices in the neighbourhood of the powerplant.

Use the heat to preheat water for generating hot water for houses, ideally make a closed loop with the water in steam turbine?

Use the heat to defrost roads during wintertime

Store the heat under the ground so it is available for later use (all cases above)

Use the heat for some kind of industrial process

---

Generating electricity often results in excess Carbondioxide CO2. Reusing the CO2 can be done by piping it to greenhouses to grow plants faster. This is already done in the Netherlands.

Capturing the CO2 as a resource for chemical process?

Capture CO2 and store it in pressure capsules, to be used for flat tires etc. Note that the CO2 is reused but not consumed.

---

Generating electricity often results in electric noise due to static etc.

Use the noise as a “camouflage shield” for offices of some secret service :)

Use the noise to generate random data to be used for encryption.

---

High towers ( which can be seen as “polluting the horizon”) can be reused as firetower. Add a rotating webcam or heat sensitivedevice to monitor the area

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Principle 23 Feedback

Introduce feedback into the system

Feedback can take several forms in an electric system.

Send feedback about the status of the tower, the cables etc to a central place for the service organisation.

Provide feedback about the expected usage from every home to the powerplant. At the distribution points where current splits a chip adds up the total of the street, the suburb, the village the city etc. Provide feedback from the powerplant to the individual homes about the status of the supply. If the powerplant reaches 90 or 100% output, warning lights could blink so people can turn off devices. Or even better certain devices in the home are automatically turned off as if a remote was used.

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Principle 24 Mediator

Use an intermediate carrier or process

Convert elelctrical signals to optical ones if possible. E.g. in some critical rooms no electricity is allowed or must be minimized.

Storage of electricity can be seen as the usage of an mediator. When windmills produce too much electricity there are several ways this can be stored, either electrical, mechanical or chemical. When there is more demand again the storage can release the energy.

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Principle 25 Self service

Make an object serve itself

All electrical devices could be made intelligent with some microprocessor and a few sensor. By measuring the primary functions of the system either being a lightbulb or a washing machine the microprocessor can turn of electricity or send a message to some computer. See http://www.media.mit.edu/physics/publications/papers/04.10.sciam/

On a bigger scale we could make the powergrid intelligent so that it reconfigures itself e.g. reconfiguring the main lines to keep everyone connected if there is a failure in a powerline.

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Principle 26 Copying

Use multiple simpler inexpensive objects instead of expensive ones.

Copper for powerlines is becoming more and more expensive. For some places cheaper iron wires would be sufficient. They might produce more heat but that is not always a problem, e.g. it melts ice on powerlines faster.

Instead of one big fuse for one house use smaller fuses in every socket. Chances are good that a short-circuit will stay very local. The big fuses are still needed but will last longer.

Use a small powerplant per street? Many small grids iso one big one. One can even imagine that a big factory has multiple small powerplants. Use many small mirrors to heat up a solar furnice in stead of one big mirror. {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_furnace)

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Principle 27 Dispose inexpensive short living objects

Replace an expensive object with multiple inexpensive objects, compromising certain qualities.

Difficult one but that's the challenge

Use many (cheaper) small mirrors to heat up a solar furnice in stead of one big mirror. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_furnace)

Use many inexpensive leds to make a traffic light instead of using a big bulb. Although several may break the collective last much longer. Allready used in many countries.

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Principle 28 Replacement of a mechanical system

Replace a mechanical means with a sensory.

Add flashing red leds to sockets carrying voltage. The puls can be very short so it consumes very little power. If there is a plug in the socket the led should still be visible. Added value is that when the socket is “dead” one can see it directly without testing.

Add flashing red leds to live wire like an extention cable.

Add a led in a light bulb fitting so it shows it's hot or not.

Add a led to anything hot, lawnmowers, drills and other powertools, coffee machines, computers, chargers, anything

Replace a mechanical switch with an solid state switch that reacts on magnetic fields. less or no sparks and EMC noise.

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Principle 29 Pneumatic or Hydraulic construction

Use gas and liquid parts instead of solid parts

Store excess energy of a windmill as pressure instead of in a lead accu or in some hydraulic system.

Use of gas to generate ligth (TL light) instead of the traditional light bulb (solid wire-based). This is an excellent example of technical evolution from solid to gas (ok it skips liquid)

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Principle 30 Flexile films or thin membranes

Isolate object from the environment

Isolators to shield high voltage from the steel towers, OK they are not thin but they definitely isolate

Add a hydrophobic film on powerlines to prevent ice forming. Maybe only at the lowest / flat part of the hanging powerline.

Imagine a lightbulb with some thin membrane instead of glass.

A very thin glove of a highly isolating material could provide the electrician shielding without the loss of the "feel of direct touch".

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