2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper presents an alternative approach for teaching undergraduate students about three-phase power systems that can be applied in a secure and active learning environment. The proposed method encompasses six lectures and two lab sessions and is designed for junior and senior students in the field of electrical engineering. Each lecture spans 50 minutes, while the lab sessions extend over 160 minutes. The teaching methodology includes hybrid traditional lectures on three-phase power, discussing wye-wye, wye-delta, and delta-delta connections for balanced and unbalanced systems, and providing online resources. Over the course of two weeks, students engage in a series of assessments designed to evaluate their understanding and skills. These assessments include in-class quizzes, pre-laboratory quizzes, post-laboratory quizzes, and exams. Our experience shows that most students found analyzing three-phase systems more straightforward by transforming the delta into wye-wye connections and determining the delta's corresponding voltage and current values for further analysis.

One of the assessment tools is an in-class quiz administered at the end of each week, covering key topics such as three-phase phase-to-natural and line-to-line voltage, current, and power calculations that they learned in one week. After the in-class quiz, students complete online pre-lab quizzes to reinforce their understanding of practical and determinative power system analysis. During the lab session, students wire the three-phase circuit, measure voltage, current, and power, and participate in a post-lab quiz that examines the three-phase power's conceptual aspects. The final assessment stage evaluates three-phase systems by taking an exam and solving the engineering problem.

This paper introduces a brief methodology for teaching three-phase systems. It provides an alternative secure instructional laboratory approach for students to explore wiring a three-phase system comprising three-phase wye and delta load connected systems, with and without transmission line impedances, powered by a three-phase line-to-line 208 Vrms AC source. The lab experience enables students to wire three-phase systems and make the connection between the theory they learn in the classroom and the practical applications in the library. They observe the time and phasor domains of the three-phase balanced and unbalanced power system in a secure environment.