A new approach to the modelling of electric arc furnaces with representative voltage samples

Summary This paper presents a new approach to the modelling of electric arc furnaces based on representative samples of voltages and currents. These samples represent characteristic 1‐s intervals and are extracted from the measured signals of longer operating periods of the arc furnace. Each of these samples contains a unique combination of interharmonic voltages and currents that represent the fingerprint of the observed furnace. On this basis, a method for modelling the dynamic variation of the electric arc is proposed, which can be used to model the electric arc furnace's operation. A general model of the furnace is thus obtained, which can be easily adapted for each installed furnace in a system. The designed model is based on the u‐i characteristic of the furnace load, that is, the reciprocal correlation between the voltage and the current of the electrical arc is obtained. The proposed model can be used for power‐quality studies, for studies of the flicker propagation and mitigation, and also for the computation and design of new compensation devices. Simulations results are compared with actual measurements, showing good agreement between the two. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.