Alireza Daneshpooy, Ph.D., P.E., CFEI

Dr. Daneshpooy has over 20 years of industrial experience and specializes in electric systems, electric power systems, HVDC, FACTS, high power electronics systems, and semiconductor switching devices evaluation and analysis. He is particularly experienced with system simulation studies. Through his career, he has developed detailed simulations to predict system performance and to implement, verify, and predict failure of control circuitries, high voltage systems, semiconductor switching devices, and thermal management systems. Dr. Daneshpooy’s experiences include industrial power distribution systems, switchgear, and safety. He has performed incident energy and electric arc hazard studies to assess the exposure to arc-flash energy, and to establish safe work practices for injury prevention.

Dr. Daneshpooy started his career in switchgear industry, where he was exposed to numerous practical experiences including field installation, failure analysis, and repair. Prior to joining Exponent, he was with Drexel University, as an assistant professor where he was responsible for developing course and curriculum for the Applied Engineering Technology (AET) program, based on his industrial experience. He has also been an independent consultant in power electronics for companies such as AREVA on Static Var Compensator (SVC) projects and Ocean Power Technologies on buoy power generation. He also supervised and participated in device evaluation and failure analysis for semiconductor switching devices and systems such as ETO, SGTO, and super fast Thyristor. He also supervised and conducted high-voltage tests (withstand, steady state) of power electronics systems up to 69kV conducted at an independent KEMA test laboratory. Dr. Daneshpooy worked for Silicon Power Corporation, where he coordinated and was responsible for program management of the company’s engineering research and support activities. The projects he supervised and lead included 69-kV 3000A transmission class solid state fault current limiter, 4MVA power conversion system, 13kV 3000A induction machine soft-starter, solid state load tap changer, and low and medium voltage static transfer switch. Throughout his career he worked with utilities, private, and government institutions such as EPRI, DOE, DOD, US NAVY, EXCELON, PECO, ConEd, SCE and TVA. He has been a research engineer with Manitoba HVDC research center, where he worked on novel simulation and power system analysis schemes, such as HVDC Capacitive Commutated Converters jointly with Siemens, and the analysis and modeling of the Written Pole Machine™.

Daneshpooy A. Turbogenerator stator core study. The 6th IEEE International Symposium on Diagnostics for Electric Machines, Power Electronics and Drives, Cracow, Poland, September 6–8, 2007.

Daneshpooy A. Harmonic cancellation for a twelve-pulse rectifier using DC bus modulation. 37th IAS Annual Meeting Conference Record, Vol. 4, pp. 2526–2529, 2002.

Daneshpooy A. Dead-beat control of parallel UPS operation. Paper 13.3 APEC2002, Dallas, TX, April 10–15, 2002.

Daneshpooy A. Capacitor commutated converter circuit configuration for DC transmission. IEEE Winter Meeting, Tampa, FL, February 1–5 1998.

Daneshpooy A. Comparison of alternative HVdc converter topologies. European Power Electronics Conference, Norway, September 1997.

Daneshpooy A. A PSCAD/EMTDC to MATLAB interface,” IPST 97, Seattle, WA, June 22–26, 1997.

Daneshpooy A. Linking computational engine to electromagnetic transients program. ICDS 97, Montreal, Canada, May 28–30, 1997.

Daneshpooy A. Fuzzy logic control of HVDC transmission. IEEE Winter Meeting, New York, NY, February 1–5 1997.

Daneshpooy A. HVDC control with on-line learning based neural network. International Conference on Power System Technology, Beijing, China, October 18–21, 1994.

Presentations and Published Abstracts

Daneshpooy A. Dead-beat control of parallel UPS operation. Paper 13.3 APEC2002, Dallas, TX, April 10–15, 2002.

Daneshpooy A. Capacitor commutated converter circuit configuration for DC transmission. IEEE Winter Meeting, Tampa, FL, February 1–5 1998.

Daneshpooy A. Comparison of alternative HVdc converter topologies. European Power Electronics Conference, Norway, September 1997.

Daneshpooy A. A PSCAD/EMTDC to MATLAB interface. IPST 97, Seattle, WA, June 22–26, 1997.

Daneshpooy A. linking computational engine to electromagnetic transients program. ICDS 97, Montreal, Canada, May 28–30, 1997.

Daneshpooy A. Fuzzy logic control of HVDC transmission. IEEE Winter Meeting, New York, NY, February 1–5 1997.

Daneshpooy A. HVDC control with on-line learning based neural network. International Conference on Power System Technology, Beijing, China, October 18–21, 1994

• Assistant Professor, Drexel University, 2003–2007
• Silicon Power Corporation, Director of Engineering, 2006–2007
• American Competitive Institute, Lead Researcher, 2002–2003
• Silicon Power Corporation, Senior Design Engineer, 1999–2002
• Manitoba HVDC Research Center, Research Engineer, 1997–1998
• Tehran Savar Co., Chief Electrical Engineer, 1989–1993
  

Designed and lead manufacturing of 4,160 V, 2 MW Power Conversion System for ONR. The PCS was a power quality system capable to support a sensitive load during short power transients (shorter than 20s). The project was an integration of an automatic static transfer switch, with one 2 MW STATCON/UPS converter that was supplied by a dc/dc boost converter.

Tested and determined the failure mode of high-current power electronic switching devices such as 120 mm thyristor and novel switching devices such as IGBT, IGCT and super fast GTO.

Designed and lead the product developing of 1,200 A, 480 V automatic transfer switch, and oversaw its oversea manufacturing.

Lead electrical switchgear low and medium voltage projects, including design, installation, testing and commissioning, adopted and enforced applicable code/standard and devised testing equipment for the product quality verification.

• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers—IEEE (senior member)
• IEEE Nuclear Power Engineering Committee—NPEC (Subcommittee 3: Operations, Maintenance, Aging, Testing, and Reliability; Working Group 3.1 on Testing, and 3.3 on Reliability)
• National Fire Protection—NFPA (member)
• National Association of Fire Investigators—NAFI (member)