Industrial Engineer · phase 13 of 16 · noun
Load Reactor
Series output inductor that reduces motor current rise, voltage stress, and some long-cable effects.
The Explain card
- Plain English
- A load reactor is an inductor on the drive's output, between the inverter and the motor. It slows the rate of rise of the PWM pulses and takes some of the peak voltage stress off the motor.
- Example
- A drive feeds a motor 150 meters away. A load reactor at the drive reduces the voltage peaks at the motor terminals enough to keep a standard motor's insulation happy.
- Why it matters
- It is the simplest protection against reflected wave damage on long cables, and it also limits current if a motor lead shorts. It drops a little voltage, so at full speed the motor sees slightly less than it should.
- Hook
- A cushion between the inverter and the winding.
Word knowledge
How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.
In a sentence
The technician installed a load reactor between the VFD output terminals and the motor leads before commissioning the conveyor.
Why these words
- load Middle English lod, from Old English lād, support or carrying marks the load-side location
- reactor English react plus the device-forming suffix -or names the device class
Where it came from
- Origin
- English compound of load and reactor
- Entered the language
- 20th century
- What changed
- Load moved from a carried burden to electrical demand and connected equipment, while reactor developed a specialized electrical sense before the words formed this engineering phrase.
How it is spelled
- Pattern
- The oa in load spells the long o sound.
- Pattern
- Reactor keeps the base react before the suffix -or.
- Pattern
- The phrase is normally written as two separate words.
- Breaks the pattern
- The adjacent e and a in reactor belong to separate syllables rather than one vowel digraph.
Spelled like
- road
- float
- conductor
- actuator
Broken into chunks
-
load
- lode
- loading
- overload
-
react
- reaction
- reactive
- reactance
-
-or
- conductor
- generator
- actuator
What it sits beside
Same subject
- line reactor
- output choke
- dV/dt filter
- sine-wave filter
- motor feeder
Same shape
- line reactor
- shunt reactor
- current-limiting reactor
reactor placements
- line reactor
- load reactor
VFD output-conditioning devices
- load reactor
- dV/dt filter
- sine-wave filter
Where it sits in the deck
Phase 13: VFD Power Quality, Wiring, and Motor Protection
Harmonics, reflected waves, shielded cable and bearing currents: the side effects a drive inflicts on everything around it.
