Innovation, research and teaching activities in the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering will be further advanced with the consolidation of the department on the Bellville Campus this July.

As from 18 July 2016, the department’s 1500 students, along with administration, teaching and research staff will report for class and work at the newly built Electrical Engineering facility on the Bellville Campus.

The consolidation is part of the broader CPUT consolidation process underway, which will see all Faculty of Engineering programmes be offered on the Bellville Campus.

Head of the department, Ben Groenewald welcomes the consolidation and says it will have a positive impact on the department’s activities.

“Centralization of academic administration will be reduced by 50% or more, which will have a significant positive impact on our operational budgets. It should also reduce the academic load on staff as lecturing duplication will no longer be necessary,” he says.

Students too will benefit by the consolidation, with teaching and learning activities set to take place in the new 10 000 square meter facility.

The facility features two state-of-the-art, three story buildings that are joined together by a double volume mid-air walkway. One building houses close to 30 laboratories, each that will be used for the practical training of students in specific areas of electrical engineering, while the second building houses the department’s six research niche areas.

The two buildings that housed the Bellville leg of the department will be converted into additional classroom space.

Groenewald says the consolidation will also allow the department to consolidate its research centres and to refocus and strengthen its research initiatives.

“The facilities make it possible to now consider the development of a high-tech electronics production and development facility to support our research initiatives and to deliver services and training to SME’s,” he says.

“The addition of the new facilities provide us the opportunity to take up the technology challenges in the Western Cape and South Africa in terms of Energy Security, Space Science and Technology and to help find solutions for these challenges.”

*Current research centres housed in the department include the following:

• French South African Institute of Technology (F'SATI)
• Centre for Distributed Power and Electronic Systems
• Centre for Power Systems Research
• Centre for Instrumentation Research
• Centre for Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems

Written by Candes Keating
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Provides coverage for the Engineering and Applied Sciences Faculties; the Bellville and Wellington Campuses, and research and innovation news.

With more than 10 000 square meters of space dedicated to research and practical training of students, the Electrical Engineering Department is setting themselves up to lead research activities at CPUT.

The department is currently in the process of constructing a new home on the Bellville Campus that will feature two state-of-the-art, three-storey buildings that will be joined together by a double volume mid-air walkway, which will accommodate student study areas.

Head of the department, Ben Groenewald, says one building will house up to 30 laboratories, each that will be used for the practical training of students in specific areas of electrical engineering.

“The second building will house the department’s six niche areas,” says Groenewald.

INNOVATIVE: The premises consist of two buildings joined by a double-volume mid-air walkway

The first floor of the second building will house the Centre for Distributed Power and Electronic Systems, the Centre for Power Systems Research and the Centre for Instrumentation Research. The second floor will feature the multi-million Rand Centre for Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems, the only centre of its kind in the world.

The top floor will be dedicated to the renowned F’SATI unit and the Product Lifecycle Management Competency Centre, which is the only of its kind in Africa.

The current two buildings housing the Electrical Engineering Department will be converted and used as classroom space.

Groenewald says when conceptualising the building they considered the government requirements for growing the engineering sector and selected a building design that will allow the department to expand their training and grow their research base.

Head of the Programme, Tom van Breda, says it is the first time that the department has made provision for research at such a large scale.

Written by Candes Keating
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Provides coverage for the Engineering and Applied Sciences Faculties; the Bellville and Wellington Campuses, and research and innovation news.

The Centre for Distributed Power and Electronic Systems is very proud of their two doctoral and five master’s graduands who will be among the last students capped at this year’s Summer Graduation.

The students studied Electrical Engineering and Ayonkunle Oluwaseun Ayeleso and Gunjan Gupta are Doctor of Electrical Engineering graduands supervised by the CDPES.

Ayeleso’s research for his DEng Electrical Engineering focused on a novel alternative energy conversion and generation system based on Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and the fourth state of matter known as plasma. He built a prototype MHD system and published seven accredited journal and conference papers for the work that led to his thesis, An improved plasma energy conversion system for Electric Power Generation.

This focus on alternatives is a big focal point of the CDPES, headed by Prof Tariq Kahn, who supervised Ayeleso.

“The Energy sector is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Do we have a solution for a seemingly dystopian future? On the one hand there is space exploration but that would be pretty useless if you go into space but Earth falls apart. Spaceship Earth has limited resources and the allocation from our current lifestyle simply uses too much. The world has to adjust and new forms of energy generation are needed,” said Kahn.

Director of CPUT’s Energy Institute, Kahn says while they realise the need to encourage students to research alternative energy sources, they cannot ignore the fossil fuel mix and the gas reserves of Mozambique and Namibia need investigating. The Western Cape’s dire water situation also means relooking how steam is utilised in power stations with an eye on desalination technology.

Another important focus area is power grids, featured in Gunjan Gupta’s DEng Electrical Engineering thesis An analysis and improvement of selected features of power quality of grid-tied alternative energy systems. Gupta, supervised by Prof Wilfred Fritz, has published her simulation results in two journal publications and six conference proceedings.

Dr Atanda Raji supervised Gideon Joubert’s Master’s thesis Advanced technological solutions to the negative perceptions of nuclear power plants. Joubert, who will graduate summa cum laude, looked at how nuclear technology has evolved into a safer and cleaner alternative method of power generation since it was first introduced.

Like Joubert, Hlonela Gesha did the new MTech Energy Coursework which is a Masters course that runs parallel to the regular Master of Electrical Engineering course. Gesha was supervised by Kahn for the thesis An analysis of the environmental impacts of biomass application hybrid Microgrids in South Africa.

Tariq Lameen, also supervised by Kahn, wrote the Master’s thesis Development of a photovoltaic reverse osmosis fogging demineralizer for improved gas turbine generation output.

William Murray, who will graduate his MEng Electrical Engineering summa cum laude, was supervised by Dr Marco Adonis for his thesis Energy Wheeling viability of distributed renewable energy for industry. He investigated the economic viability and technical concerns of transporting electricity generated by an Independent Power Producer directly to an industrial consumer.

Supervised by Dr Wilfred Fritz and Kahn, Nkusi Emmanuel will graduate as a Master of Electrical Engineering having written the thesis Modelling of Harmonic Stability and Voltage Distortion between Electrical Grid and Renewable Generation Technologies.

Written by Theresa Smith
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