Power Factor Calculation by the Finite Element Method
- Resource Type
- Periodical
- Authors
- da Silva, C. A.; Bidaud, F.; Herbet, P.; Cardoso, J. R.
- Source
- IEEE Transactions on Magnetics IEEE Trans. Magn. Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on. 46(8):3002-3005 Aug, 2010
- Subject
- Fields, Waves and Electromagnetics
Reactive power
Finite element methods
Induction motors
Research and development
Performance analysis
Testing
Electrochemical machining
Voltage
Europe
Software tools
Finite element method
power factor
saturation
single-phase induction motor
- Language
- ISSN
- 0018-9464
1941-0069
The use of finite element analysis (FEA) to design electrical motors has increased significantly in the past few years due the increasingly better performance of modern computers. Even though the analytical software remains the most used tool, the FEA is widely used to refine the analysis and gives the final design to be prototyped. The power factor, a standard data of motor manufactures data sheet is important because it shows how much reactive power is consumed by the motor. This data becomes important when the motor is connected to network. However, the calculation of power factor is not an easy task. Due to the saturation phenomena the input motor current has a high level of harmonics that cannot be neglected. In this work the FEA is used to evaluate a proposed (not limitative) methodology to estimate the power factor or displacement factor of a small single-phase induction motor. Results of simulations and test are compared.