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7: AC Power

  • Page ID
    25285
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    Learning Objectives

    After completing this chapter, you should be able to:

    • Describe current, voltage and power relationships in AC RLC networks.
    • Plot and make use of the power triangle to determine real, apparent and reactive power components in an AC power system.
    • Compute the power factor of an RLC network.
    • Determine necessary components for basic power factor correction.
    • Perform basic power calculations for systems involving power factor and efficiency.

    • 7.1: Introduction
    • 7.2: Power Waveforms
      Computation of power in AC systems is somewhat more involved than the DC case due to the phase between the current and voltage. It has been stated in prior work that power dissipation is characteristic of resistors, and that ideal inductors and capacitors do not dissipate power. We shall show precisely why this is the case by examining three distinct cases for AC circuits: purely resistive, purely reactive and complex impedance.
    • 7.3: Power Triangle
    • 7.4: Power Systems
    • 7.5: Summary
    • 7.6: Exercises


    This page titled 7: AC Power is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by James M. Fiore via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

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