Adjunct Professor Mikael Unge (NKT)
Dr Unge is an Assistant Professor (Affiliated faculty) in Theoretical Polymer Physics at the Division of Polymeric Materials at the School of Chemical Science and Engineering.
Research Interest
Application of material simulation techniques to polymers and composites material. In particular to understand the influence of material properties on dielectric performance of the material.
Projects
Multiscale material simulation of HVDC cable insulation
The global energy demand is constantly increasing due to population growth and industrialization. At the same time, significant reduction of carbon dioxide emission need to be achieved to cope with climate change challenges. Sustainable resources like wind and solar may be solutions, on the other hand these resources are not seldom located at large distances from where the energy is consumed in highly populated and industrialized regions. To be successful, an efficient electrical power grid and HVDC cables need to be used. However, energy transport over longer distances requires that the electrical insulation in the cable needs to be improved further. The objective of this project is to apply material simulation techniques to deepen the knowledge towards the understanding of charge transport (i.e. the resistivity) within the cable insulation. The knowledge gained will be highly valuable for the development of future generation cable insulation material and cable design, which may enable the transfer to sustainable energy sources. Material simulation will be used for understanding the influence of chemistry and morphology on the conductivity within the insulation material.
Molecular Dynamics, DFT, linear-scaling DFT and Monte Carlo techniques are combined to simulate charge carrier properties of polymer dielectrics.
The project is funded by Vinnova 2016 via grant 2015-06557 and SSF 2017-2018 via grant SM15‐0022