Consider the AC circuit shown above, with source impedances and RMS source voltages given. The load impedance Z L internally consists of a combination of resistors, capacitors, and inductors.
What is the maximum active power (in watts) which can possibly be dissipated by the load?
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Excellent problem. I think the problem is even more interesting if the three voltage sources are not all in phase. For example, if the first source is in opposite phase (180^o off) to the other two sources?
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Yeah, I thought of making it that way. But I figured I would keep it somewhat simple. Feel free to post a followup if you want.
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I will. I had to figure out the solution first, but I think I got it.
I have just posted the problem. I noticed that you solved it before I finished writing up the solution. It is great to see that we got the same result!
How the minus sign came in the second step in Zs
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In electric circuits j is used for the imaginary unit . That is j = − 1 to avoid confusion with i being current. j 1 = j 1 × j j = j 2 j = − 1 j = − j .
Perhaps I am not understanding but if a purely imaginary impedance is used, larger active powers can be achieved in the load. For example, for Z L = − j / 2 Ω , the power I arrive at is 288 W. In fact, the value I find to give the maximum power is about − 0 . 5 8 1 Ω . Am I missing some information?
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If the load is purely reactive (pure j), the load power is zero, by definition.
For purely reactive load the voltage and current is 9 0 ∘ out of phase. And real power is given by P = V I cos ϕ , where cos ϕ is the power factor. When ϕ = 9 0 ∘ , P = 0 .
Would be nice if a solution is given where the maximum is proved with calculus, not by using the conjugation magic
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It's a fun exercise. Would be good as a "Note"
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Maximizing the real part of "voltage difference" times "current" at the load doesn't seem to yield the same result though.
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@Filip Kozarski – I'll post the general derivation for conjugate impedance matching here.
I posted a link to a note as a solution to this problem.
@Chew-Seong Cheong provided a nice solution which utilizes the conjugate impedance matching principle. For further justification of this approach see the this note
Here you compute load power as |I|^2 R L, while the first answer used Re(U^2/Z L). As I haven't studied this in English I'm not sure what the "active power" refers to, but it seems you have now used a different definition.
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I'm sorry for italics, I tried to use _ for indices
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When dealing with power formulas, there are several equivalent versions.
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@Steven Chase – Well, if the real part is only taken at the end, a purely imaginary Z_L could give a nonzero "active" power
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@Filip Kozarski – Here's a general picture of it, considering just the voltage, current, and impedance associated with an element.
P = R e ( V I ∗ ) = R e ( V ( Z V ) ∗ ) = R e ( Z ∗ ∣ V ∣ 2 )
The squared voltage inside is a scalar. Thus, if the load impedance is purely reactive, there will be no active power.
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@Steven Chase – Ok great:). Just a note then, the first solution has a typo, taking the square of voltage (and not the square of it's magnitude). Furthermore, when dividing by Z_L, we should get a conjugated value. It doesn't affect the result of course.
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The three parallel AC voltage sources with source impedance is equivalent to a single voltage source V S with a source impedance Z S where
V S Z S = 1 0 ∠ 0 ∘ ∣ ∣ 1 0 ∠ 0 ∘ ∣ ∣ 1 0 ∠ 0 ∘ = 1 0 ∠ 0 ∘ V = ( 1 + j 0 ) ∣ ∣ ( 1 + j 1 ) ∣ ∣ ( 0 + j 1 ) ∣ ∣ = 1 + 1 + j 1 + j 1 1 = 1 + 2 1 − j − j 1 = 2 3 ( 1 − j ) 1 = 3 1 + j Ω
For maximum active power dissipated by the load the load impedance must be the conjugate of the source impedance. Z L = Z S = 3 1 − j Ω .
Then the power dissipated at the load
P L = ℜ ( ( Z S + Z L Z L × V S ) 2 × Z L 1 ) = ℜ ( ( Z S + Z L ) 2 Z L V S 2 ) = ℜ ( ( 3 2 ) 2 3 1 − j × 1 0 2 ) = ℜ ( 7 5 ( 1 − j ) ) = 7 5 W