A TRIAC is a switching device which will generate harmonics in the
power drawn from the mains. Some of the power may be reactive power
but most is real power that light your bulb. The voltage and current
are both in phase even if waveform is a distorted.
No, the main voltage is not distorted. if you measute before the triac
there is a phase offset for every phase angle not 0 or 2*pi (more or less).
A motor will cause a phase offset between voltage and current because
it is a reactive load. So will a transformer, it is reactive too.
Then where does the reactive power in a triac circuit go? in a capacitive or inductive setup you
have some sort of energy storage. i don't see that in a triac circuit.
if you only take the first part of the fourier analysis of the signal (the first AC)
you get for the voltage the line voltage sine (if we assume it is not loaded down much
by the circuit) and for current you get the first sine approximation of the current the triac uses.
if we switch on at 50% of the sine this is definitely offset quite a bit.
i know the things you say about reactive power already, i'm just not seeing where it is going
in a triac circuit.
It looks to me like if at any given moment all the power =U*I in the load and thermal losses in the
triac. i just can't get reactive power here.
It seems a bit unlikely to me to convert reactive power to active power, this should be impossible.
So it seems there should not be any reactive power consumed by a triac circuit.
But if i look at the input it seems so..
ST
