Award Date

1-1-2007

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Committee Member

Yahia Baghzouz

Number of Pages

66

Abstract

It is estimated that electric motors consume approximately two-third of all the electric energy generated in the United States. It is also a known fact that induction motors found in residential and commercial applications are often oversized and operate well below their rated capacity. Because the efficiency of an electric motor is reduced at lighter load, numerous studies have been conducted in the past to reduce motor losses under such load conditions by either lowering the supply voltage (and in some cases, supply frequency) by means of static power converters. But some articles reported conflicting results in terms of energy savings for different duty cycles; The objective of this thesis is to determine the most efficient way to operate a number of common single-phase induction motors when operating below their horsepower ratings. To accomplish this, the following steps are taken: (A) Characterize the motors in terms of their performance (at nominal voltage) and model parameters. (B) Simulate the steady-state performance under lower voltage (by SCR control) and lower load. (C) Determine a way to smooth out both voltage and current distortion. (D) Verify the simulations with laboratory experiments; It is asserted that most efficient way to run a motor for a given load is to vary the voltage until minimum input power is achieved. However, unlike the Nola concept, the implementation of such strategy is not as simple as this requires a micro-processor with memory.

Keywords

Conditions; Energy; Induction; Light; Load; Motors; Phase; Savings; Single

Controlled Subject

Electrical engineering

File Format

pdf

File Size

1433.6 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

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