Analysis of the electrical transients of appliances in the laboratory-based fuel cell house

The purpose of this thesis was threefold, (1) the capture of the transient responses of five major household appliances inside the University of South Alabama's laboratory-based fuel cell house, (2) statistical analysis to confirm the veracity of the captured trials, and (3) development of a model derived from a system adequate enough to describe each device's analog waveform. These devices were important to study since potentially they have power transients that significantly exceed their steady state power requirements. Three trial runs were conducted for each of the five major household appliances selected inside the laboratory-based fuel cell home. Based on that data, the consistency of these trials were verified through comparison of the following: (1) collection of statistical metrics for each trial; and (2) graphs illustrating both the analog waveforms of each trial and the RMS representations of each trial. Models were devised to simulate the transients of those devices and were found to correlate extremely well with the experimental data. The excess transient power and energy required by these devices was also determined as a result of these trials. These findings will permit researchers to efficiently and economically augment the capacity of their fuel cells to levels necessary for independent operation from the conventional power grid.