Front Cover

For a specific susceptibility of end-user equipment, the impact of disturbances can be mitigated by design modifications of circuit layout, grounding system design, overvoltage protection, filters, use of steel conduit, use of additional transformers, etc. The effectiveness of these design options on power quality can be analyzed with specialized analysis software. These analysis methods should be able to model systems with three phase wires, four wires (three phase and a neutral/or ground wire), five wires (three phase wires, a neutral wire, and a ground wire), single and double phase circuits, grounding and bonding points, grounding systems, etc. This article presents a method with these capabilities. An additional feature of the method is that the power system component models are physically based, i.e., the model retains the physical construction of the component as opposed to being represented with an abstract mathematical equivalent. A physically based model and analysis procedure provides the means to expose the interrelationship between the physical parameters (i.e., grounding system design, size of neutral, etc.) and power quality. Typical results are presented in this article. In addition, the model is utilized for a statistical assessment of the effects of specific designs on power quality.