A Comparison of Output Waveforms of Different Alternating Current Sources and Uninterruptible Power Supplies of Various Brands

Electrical Energy is the lifeline of domestic, industrial, agricultural and approximately every field of life. Generally available appliances at domestic and industrial levels are of Alternating Current (AC) nature that is they operate on Alternating Current. This type of Current can graphically be shown by pure sinusoidal wave. All of the appliances are designed to operate on pure sine wave but most of the electrical energy sources, converters and various types of Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) available in the market give the output which is not of pure sinusoidal wave shape and contains harmonics and interharmonics. These harmonics can cause overheating of the devices and many other problems that ultimately damage the device/appliance or at least decrease the life of electrical gadgets. This research is going to evaluate the shapes of these waveforms, their harmonics and then to establish a hierarchy among the sources on the basis of characteristics of their resultant output waveforms. For the purpose mentioned above, a very high range digital oscilloscope with ultra zoom capabilities has been used. It will provide ease to suggest a new buyer of the energy source in setting priority amongst the available alternatives qualitatively.