Transient Conditions in Electric Machinery

The vector method is just as useful in solving problems involving transient conditions in electric circuits as it has proved to be when the currents and potentials are steady sinusoids. As far as the writer is aware, the vector method for determining transients in rotating electric machines was first used by L. Dreyfus. Previously the method had been applied to fixed combinations of resistances, inductances and capacitances by Kennelly and others. By making certain assumptions that are, however, quite reasonable in many cases, the transient currents in nearly all of the common types of electric machinery are damped sinusoids. Fortunately the damping is exponential and is thus readily accounted for. It is interesting to trace the development of the method. In the solution of all problems in direct currents the potentials, currents, and circuit constants are real numbers. In the corresponding problem in which the applied potentials are steady sinusoids, these quantities are all represented by complex numbers. In all other respects the working out of the solution is identical with that followed in the direct-current case. When the currents are damped sinusoids, they and the potentials and the circuit constants can still be represented by complex numbers. There is this difference, however; the vectors which represent the currents and potentials shrink exponentially as they rotate and the values of the circuit constants depend not only upon the frequency of the current, but also upon its rate of shrinking.