Abstract :
Today´s power systems tend to cover whole continents and the density of transmission facilities is continuously increasing. A disturbance produced in one point propagates to remote points of the system, it may be reflected at the boundaries and standing waves may build up. To obtain better insight into such phenomena, the complex power system is represented as a continuum, with transmission capacity and machine inertial uniformly distributed. One and two dimensional propagation are examined and analogies with travelling and standing electromagnetic waves are established. Propagation velocity and characteristic impedance are calculated. Resonance, and reflection-free terminations, acting as dynamic equivalents of surrounding systems, are also discussed as applications to the general theory. Results with the continuum representation are compared to those obtained for a discrete model to confirm the validity of the method.
