Moein Borghei

• Doctor of Philosophy
• High Voltage Scientist at Avalanche Energy

From overcoming wartime educational challenges to advancing the understanding of high-voltage vacuum insulation, Rod Latham's six-decade career is a story of resilience, scientific curiosity, and groundbreaking discoveries—offering fresh insights that continue to challenge conventional theories on prebreakdown current.

Electron emission from cathodes in high field gradients is a quantum tunneling effect. The Fowler-Nordheim (FN) equation has traditionally been key in describing cold-field emissions, offering estimates for emitters for almost a century. Nevertheless, applying FN theory in practice is often constrained by the lack of data on the distribution and ge...

To explore the confinement of high-energy ions above the space charge limit, we have developed a hybrid magnetic and electrostatic confinement device called an Orbitron. The Orbitron is a crossed-field device combining aspects of magnetic mirrors, magnetrons, and orbital ion traps. Ions are confined in orbits around a high-voltage cathode with co-r...

The growing energy demand and the global warming crisis require increasing the share of sustainable energy sources. Fusion energy has the potential to provide a zero-carbon, low-waste energy source that revolutionizes the energy industry. A gram of hydrogen isotope as fusion fuel can give equal energy to burning 16 m3 of coal. In a novel approach t...

While the topic of partial discharges (PD) has been well studied for ac systems, it is immature for dc systems. Although much work has been done and significant progress has been made on PD measurement and detection techniques, this is not the case for PD modeling. To address these technical gaps, a finite element analysis (FEA) model for internal...

The electrification trend in the aviation industry is expected to accelerate. The incentives to this trend include but are not limited to the lower operating cost, lower CO2 emission, and higher fault tolerability of more and all electric aircraft than conventional aircraft. However, the wide bandgap (WBG)-based power conversion systems-despite the...

The global warming crisis has started a movement toward the reduction of emissions and fossil-fuel dependency. A major potential resides in the transportation sector which has led to the proliferation of electric vehicles. Similarly, significant progress has been made toward electrification in the aviation industry. Unlike electric cars, electrific...

With the growing concern toward the global warming crisis, the electrification of commercial aircraft is targeted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation industry. However, the environment that an aircraft operates in provides significant design challenges. Moreover, the technologies that enhance the power density of the powertrain (su...

In recent decades, extensive research has been conducted on the electrification of commercial aircraft to reduce the dependency on mechanical, hydraulic, and pneumatic systems and replace them with electrical systems. A primary goal of this path is to make the power density of the more/all-electric aircraft (MEA/AEA) closer to that of conventional...

Insulation system health is crucial for reliable, lifelong operation of almost any electrical apparatus. While many studies have focused on the testing, modeling, and analysis of insulation aging mechanisms, research is needed to overcome new challenges in electric power systems. Fortunately, the progress in data analytics methods has opened up new...

Many sectors, such as transportation systems, are undergoing rapid electrification due to the need for the mitigation of CO2 emissions. To ensure safe and reliable operation, the electrical equipment must be able to work under various environmental conditions. At high altitudes, the low pressure can adversely affect the health of insulating materia...

The electrification trend in the aviation industry is expected to accelerate. The incentives to this trend include but are not limited to the lower operating cost, lower CO2 emission, and higher fault tolerability of more electric aircraft than conventional aircraft. However, the wide bandgap (WBG)-based power conversion systems-despite their super...

The global warming crisis has started a movement toward the reduction of emissions and fossil-fuel dependency. A major potential resides in the transportation sector which has led to the proliferation of electric vehicles. Similarly, significant progress has been made toward electrification in the aviation industry. Unlike electric cars, electrific...

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-3291.vid The electrification trend in the aviation industry is expected to accelerate. The incentives to this trend include but are not limited to the lower operating cost, lower CO2 emission, and higher fault tolerability of more and all electric aircraft than conventional aircraft. However,...

A well-known symptom of the aging phenomenon in electrical insulations is partial discharge (PD) which can occur in all media. Internal PDs in solid dielectrics occur in air-filled voids which are difficult to eliminate thoroughly and may appear simply during the manufacturing process. Although much research on PD measurement for solid dielectrics...

Partial discharge (PD) is a major aging factor in insulation systems. The first step toward ensuring the health of insulation systems is the identification of PD sources. This would enable the system operator to take proper actions before the occurrence of the final breakdown. This fundamental study targets building and training a deep residual neu...

Although much work has been done and significant progress has been made on partial discharge (PD) measurement and detection techniques, this is not the case for PD modeling. Four types of internal PD modeling, in sequential order from first to last developed, are three-capacitance (abc), induced charge concept (ICC), finite-element-analysis (FEA),...

The reliability of electrical equipment is closely tied with the health of their insulation system. A well-known symptom of the aging phenomenon in dielectrics is partial discharge (PD) which can occur in all media. Internal PDs in solid dielectrics occur in air-filled voids which are difficult to eliminate thoroughly and may appear simply during t...

As severe weather events disrupt the power system more frequently and more harshly, the concern is growing around the ability of future grids to recover from such natural disasters. Recently, a major research focus has been on microgrids (MGs) as a potential source of resiliency. While most of the works done so far center on how to benefit from exi...

Natural disasters and cascading events have historically caused severe disruptions of the electric power system. For instance, in 2012, hurricane Sandy left over 8 million people in darkness and caused total damage costing $65 billion. Under emergency conditions, microgrids can help the electric power system recover critical loads, such as hospital...

The aviation industry, as one of the major CO2 producers, anticipates a reduction in its carbon emission. While big manufacturers and governmental agencies are betting on the more-(and soon all-) electrified aircraft to reduce the dependency of this industry on fossil fuels, there are major milestones to be reached in the next three decades. Among...

The objectives of this paper are (i) to create a revolutionary design for transmission lines by shifting phase configurations and subconductors into "unconventional" arrangements that are geometrically optimized to maximize natural power, and (ii) to study electromagnetic transients owing to simultaneous and sequential line energization for unconve...

The aviation industry aims to reduce CO2 emission by reducing energy consumption and benefitting from more electrical systems than those based on fossil fuels. The more electric aircraft (MEA) can take advantage of the drives based on wide bandgap (WBG) based power modules that are lighter and can bear higher voltages and currents. However, the fas...

The aviation industry aims to reduce CO2 emission by reducing energy consumption and benefitting from more electrical systems than those based on fossil fuels. The more electric aircraft (MEA) can take advantage of the drives based on wide bandgap (WBG)-based power modules that are lighter and can bear higher voltages and currents. However, the fas...

Wide bandgap (WBG) devices made from materials such as SiC, GaN, Ga2O3 and diamond, which can tolerate higher voltages and currents compared to silicon-based devices, are the most promising approach for reducing the size and weight of power management and conversion systems. Silicone gel, which is the existing commercial option for encapsulation of...

The goal of this paper is to discover "unconventional" high surge impedance loading (HSIL) line designs, through determining the best location of sub-conductors, to maximize SIL while satisfying the structural and electrical constraints through a heuristic algorithm. The paper shows the potential of unconventional HSIL line as an innovative technol...

When a fault or a series of faults occur in a distribution network, it is of considerable significance to feeding loads, most importantly critical loads. Although network reconfiguration by switching operations has been usually considered as a relatively low-cost method for load restoration, it alone may not able to restore critical loads under ext...

Wide bandgap (WBG) power modules able to tolerate high voltages and currents are the most promising solution to reduce the size and weight of the power management and conversion systems. These systems are envisioned to be widely used in the power grid and the next generation of more (and possibly all) electric aircraft, ships, and vehicles. However...

Wide bandgap (WBG) devices able to tolerate high voltages and currents and operating at higher frequencies are the most promising approach for reducing the size and weight of power management and conversion systems. These systems are envisaged to be widely used in next generation aircraft, ships, and vehicles, which are expected to be more electric...

This paper develops a revolutionary design for transmission lines by shifting phase configurations and subconductors into unconventional arrangements that are geometrically optimized, leading to very high surge impedance loading (HSIL) and very low corridor width (CW) (ultra SIL/CW).

Accelerated aging of insulation systems used in different apparatus under fast, repetitive voltage pulses is the most significant barrier to benefit from wide bandgap (WBG) power electronics. Frequency and slew rate which are higher for WGB devices than Si-based ones are two of the most critical factors of a voltage pulse, influencing the level of...