Proposal

A proposal was written by the Pure Wave team and then submitted to the client, Dr. Allison Kipple, on December 7, 2012. The purpose of creating and submitting a proposal is to ensure that all work done by the engineering team is done to fulfill the needs of the client. The client must agree that the proposed design fits their needs before any prototype construction begins.

Several tradeoffs were made when deciding which designs the team would pursue. For instance, although a unified power quality conditioner (UPQC) would remove harmonics from a power system, the process of designing a UPQC is time intensive, and the device is extremely expensive to construct. Therefore a less expensive design needed to be investigated by the team." After making several decision matrices to determine which design was best suited to the needs of the client, the team agreed to pursue a third harmonic active filter. However, research conducted by the team after submitting the proposal showed that shunt active power filters were a more effective and similar in cost when compared to the third harmonic active filter. With approval from the client, the team began designing a shunt active power filter, and on March 1, 2013, an updated version of the proposal was submitted for review.

The process of creating a proposal and then later making updates exemplifies the non-linear nature of the design process. Had the team proceeded with a third harmonic active filter instead of a shunt active power filter, the final design would have been less effective while still costing the same. By being able to revisit the proposal stage, a better product was created by the Pure Wave team.

To download the original proposal submitted by the Pure Wave team, click here, and to download the updated proposal, click here.

The next step of the design process was to create a detailed design.