Harmonic distortion from induction furnace loads in a steel production plant

Abstract

The use of induction furnaces for steelmaking has grown dramatically in the last decade throughout the world. The steel melting process involves the use of large quantities of energy in a short time and in some instances the process causes large decrease in the quality of electric power system to electricity users on the same network. In this paper, a new block for induction furnace was developed using MatLab Simulink software and the effect of induction furnace loads on the steel plant supply network was analyzed in terms of total harmonic distortions of voltage and current, using the developed block. Installation of a commensurate passive filter for distortion reduction was proposed, designed and simulated. The simulation of the installation of the designed passive filter shows that the filter reduced the distortions by approximately 60%, limiting the residual distortions to permissible values. The new block provided proved to be effective in harmonic distortion analysis in the power supply system of a steel production plant and can be applied for similar studies.Keywords: harmonics distortion, Induction furnace, passive filter, simulation and total harmonic distortion (THD), Nigeria.