Application of virtual instrumentation in a power engineering laboratory

This paper presents a few of the OSU-Stillwater Power Engineering Laboratory capabilities. Digital signal acquisition and virtual instrumentation (National Instruments' LABVIEW software) are used to help students understand the concepts by visualizing the data. Some features of virtual instrumentation are real-time display of waveforms, phasor diagrams, real and reactive power, spectral analysis as well as the ability to interpret the data graphically. Some techniques for improved laboratory practice as well as the laboratory capabilities concerning experiments of transformers and rotating machines are presented.