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Whats common for Beer Mug and Power Factor?

http://electrical-engineering-portal.com/beer-mug-and-power-factor Edvard May 20, 2013

Understanding power factor is not that hard. We have some very common example from the real life you will understand for sure, but first lets start with some introduction of power factor. To unde rstand pow e r factor, w e ll first start w ith the de finition of some basic te rms: kW is Working Pow e r (also called Actual Power or Active Power or Real Power). It is the power that actually powers the equipment and performs useful work.
What's common for Beer Mug and Power Factor?

kVAR is Re active Pow e r . It is the power that magnetic equipment (transformer, motor, relay etc.) needs to produce the magnetizing flux. kVA is Appare nt Pow e r . It is the vectorial summation of KVAR and KW.

Example From the Real Life

Lets look at a

Ok, these folks must've been running some heavy reactive power compensation - 'cause there's no foam P.F.=1

simple analogy in order to better understand these terms.

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Lets say its friday evening, and you are with your friends at your favorite pub after really hot day. You order up a big mug of your favorite beer for you and for your friends. The thirst-quenching portion of your beer is represented by KW (the big pic on top ). Unfortunate ly, life isnt pe rfe ct. Along with your ale comes a little bit of foam. (And lets face itthat foam just doesnt quench your thirst.) This foam is represented by KVAR . The total contents of your mug, KVA, is this summation of KW (the be e r ) and KVAR (the foam ). So, now that we understand some basic terms, we are ready to learn about power factor: Pow e r Factor (P.F.) is the ratio of Working Pow e r to Appare nt Pow e r. Looking at our beer mug analogy above, power factor would be the ratio of beer (KW ) to beer plus foam (KVA ). Thus, for a give n KVA: 1. The more foam you have (the higher the percentage of KVAR), the lower your ratio of KW (beer) to KVA (beer plus foam). Thus, the lower your power factor. 2. The less foam you have (the lower the percentage of KVAR), the higher your ratio of KW (beer) to KVA (beer plus foam). In fact, as your foam (or KVAR) approaches zero, your power factor approaches 1.0. Our beer mug analogy is a bit simplistic. In reality, when we calculate KVA, we must determine the ve ctorial summation of KVAR and KW. Therefore, we must go one step further and look at the angle between these vectors.

Power Triangle
The Pow e r Triangle illustrates this relationship between KW , KVA , KVAR , and Pow e r Factor :

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Note that in an ide al w orld looking at the be e r mug analogy: 1. KVAR would be ve ry small (foam would be approaching zero) 2. KW and KVA would be almost e qual (more beer; less foam) There are dosen of tools and technical articles/guides published at EEP that can help you to understand power factor and its controlling. Hope these can help: Re source : powerstudies.com

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