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Electrical Engineering - ELEN 441

Power Electronics

• Calculate the components of “power quality” (momentary interruptions, voltage sags, voltage swells, voltage transients, and waveform distortion).
• Understand why power quality problems are increasing in power systems. 
• Understand how power quality is of increasing importance to customers (residential, commercial, and industrial).
• Identify new equipment that has been developed for power quality monitoring and analysis.
• Understand the components of “power reliability” and how reliability affects customers (residential, commercial, and industrial).
• Identify the benefits and calculate the costs of premium power parks offering higher levels of power reliability and power quality.
• Calculate the harmonic effects associated with the use of solid state power switches.
• Calculate the harmonic effects associated with variable speed drives used in industry.
• Calculate the harmonic effects associated with the use of
• Calculate the harmonic effects associated with dc transmission lines. 
• Design power electronics circuits using the “building-block approach” that replaces switches with transformer models.
• Design Switch-Mode dc Power Supplies (continuous and discontinuous modes, voltage and peak-current-mode control)
• Design Power-Factor-Correction Circuits
• Design Motor Drives with cascaded control with torque, speed, and position loops.
• Design circuits to predict converter interactions in distributed power systems. 
• Calculate the effects of non-linear customer loads (injection of harmonics into power systems, telephone interference, etc.)
• Calculate the effects of power system voltage harmonics on customers (high neutral currents, tripping of protective devices, overheating of motors, etc.)
• Calculate the frequencies when system inductance and power factor correction capacitors cause series or parallel resonance.
• Understand when “flicker” is introduced in power systems.
• Calculate total harmonic distortion when several harmonics are present.
• Understand the difference between conventional power flow programs and harmonic analysis programs.
• Calculate the effect of harmonics on potential transformers and current transformers.
• Calculate the difference in measurements made by average responding meters and rms responding meters.
• Understand the provisions of the National Electrical Code and IEEE standards relating to waveform distortion and harmonics.
• Calculate Crest Factors and Derating Factors for equipment that is used in environments involving non-linear loads.
• Relate harmonics to symmetrical components, particularly in understanding how motors respond to negative sequence components.
• Identify the characteristic harmonics associated with various phenonmenon.
• Understand the state of the art in analyzing “inter-harmonics.”
• Calculate short circuit ratios for various system configurations.
• Identify ways to decrease notching effects in power systems.
• Identify ways to decrease telephone interference from power systems.
• Identify ways to correct resonant circuit problems on power systems.
• Calculate neutral current flows in unbalanced circuits.
• Understand the technical characteristics of an uninterruptible power supply.
• Understand the characteristics and operation of diode rectifiers.
• Understand the characteristics and operation of converters using power transistors and thyristors.
• Calculate the output voltages from the various rectifiers and converters.
• Understand the function of Flexible A.C. Transmission Systems (FACTS)
• Calculate the performance parameters for various power supplies.
• Calculate the performance parameters for A.C. and D.C. drives.