Notes

Electric Motors

By Steven McFadyen on 3/28/2012 1:12 PM

Collection of links to various places with useful motor information. I’ll try and return to the page every now and again to update it with any motor notes added to the site. read more..

How a Digital Substation Works

By Steven McFadyen on 3/2/2014 12:06 PM

Traditionally substations have used circuit breakers, current transformers (CT), voltage transformers (VT) and protection relays all wired together using copper cables. With advances in digital... read more..

The ac resistance of conductors

By Steven McFadyen on 1/11/2012 4:03 PM

In a previous article I looked at the dc resistance of conductors and in this article we turn our attention to ac resistance. If you have not read the previous article, now may be a good time to do so. ... read more..

Restricted Earth Fault Protection

By Steven McFadyen on 3/25/2012 12:49 PM

The windings of many medium and small sized transformers are protected by restricted earth fault (REF) systems. The illustration shows the principal of REF protection. read more..

Cable Insulation Properties

By Steven McFadyen on 5/15/2012 6:13 AM

Cable insulation is used to provide electrical separation between conductors of a cable. During the historical development of cables, numerous types of insulation have been employed. ... read more..

Photovoltaic (PV) Panel - Performance Modelling

By Steven McFadyen on 1/8/2015 3:55 AM

In an earlier note on the site [Photovoltaic (PV) - Electrical Calculations], the theory of solar (PV) ... read more..

Load Flow Study – how they work

By Steven McFadyen on 12/8/2014 10:25 AM

A load flow study is the analysis of an electrical network carried out by an electrical engineer. The purpose is to understand how power flows around the electrical network. Carrying out a load flow s... read more..

Thermoplastic and Thermosetting Insulation

By Steven McFadyen on 7/6/2011 3:12 AM

While there are a vast array of cable insulation materials, these are often divided into two general types; Thermoplastic or Thermosetting. For example the current capacity determination of a cable in a... read more..

Arc Flash Calculations

By Steven McFadyen on 3/22/2012 6:14 AM

Working in the vicinity of electrical equipment poses an hazard. In addition to electric shock hazard, fault currents passing through air causes Arc Flash. To protect people a risk analysis on the ar... read more..

Motor Starting - Introduction

By Steven McFadyen on 8/11/2011 1:28 AM

Motor starting and its associated problems are well-known to many people who have worked on large industrial processes. However, these things are, of course, less familiar to others. This post ... read more..

Tips for a better Low Voltage Protection Discrimination Study

By Steven McFadyen on 11/3/2014 11:48 AM

Carrying out a protection system discrimination study is critical to ensure the correct functioning of the electrical system in the event of faults. The IEC defines discrimination as:

What is an Open Delta Transformer

By Steven McFadyen on 10/13/2014 11:54 AM

In three phase systems, the use of transformers with three windings (or legs) per side is common. These three windings are often connected in delta or star, resulting in common transformer conf... read more..

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Voltage Drop in Installations - Concepts

Problems on achieving maximum voltage drop within an installation come up often. Depending where you live, local regulations will have different limits...

IEC 61439 - The Switchgear Standard

The new standard IEC 61439 replaces the old 60439. Compared to the old standard, the new 61439 is a more clearly defined and takes into account the assembly...

RLC Circuit, Resistor Power Loss - some Modelica experiments

Modelica is an open source (free) software language for modelling complex systems. Having never used it before, I thought I would download a development...

Smarter Electrical Distribution

The other day I came across an article in Technology Review on the development of a smart transformer. A professor at North Carolina State University is...

Harmonised Cable Codes and Colours

Within Europe the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) has standardised the both the designation and colour of cables. ...

Motor Starting - Introduction

Motor starting and its associated problems are well-known to many people who have worked on large industrial processes. However, these things are, of course...

IEEE Winds of Change

IEEE TV has a part series of videos on wind power and it's implication. For a really good overview to the technologies and issues around wind power, these...

Meeting room of the future

The IET site has a video of a visit showing of a high tech meeting room developed at Napier University in Edinburgh. It a good demonstration of innovative...

What are you reading!

Reading is a bit of a hobby of mine and I"ve done a few off-topic posts in the past on this. Rather than continue doing the occasional post I thought ...

Fault Calculations - Typical Equipment Parameters

A frequent problem in fault calculations is the obtaining of equipment parameters. While it is always preferable to use the actual parameters of the equipment...

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