Power System Transient Stability Analysis Software Tool for an Undergraduate Curriculum S. MUKNAHALLIPATNA, STANISLAW LEGOWSKI, SADRUL ULA, JASON KOPAS Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071-3295 Received 12 January 2000; accepted 2 January 2001 ABSTRACT: This paper describes, a technique of the transient stability assessment, known as the Extended Equal Area Criterion (EEAC) as applied to a multimachine power system. The EEAC is implemented using the MATLAB program to provide a software tool with GUI. The software tool of the EEAC is developed to incorporate the transient stability analysis, into an undergraduate curriculum in power engineering. Another criterion for developing this software is to reduce the effort normally associated with the instruction of the complex theory of the transient stability and the use of the software in an undergraduate classroom environment. The results obtained from the MATLAB software on two multimachine power systems are compared with the traditional time domain analysis technique for veri®cation purposes. ß 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 9: 37±48, 2001 Keywords: Transient; stability; machines; education; software INTRODUCTION In 1986, the IEEE Spectrum published an article examining the power engineering education in the United States [1]. The article reported serious pro- blems af¯icting power engineering education at the Universities due to a number of factors. The major factors cited in this article were shrinking funds for education and basic research, a slowdown in elec- tricity demand, and decreasing student interest. In the Department of Electrical Engineering at University of Wyoming, one of the major research areas is power engineering with substantial research funds and publications. In order to continue the research in this area, the department had to address the issue of waning interest of students in the area of power engineering. A proposal was submitted to the National Science Foundation to restructure the power engi- neering curriculum that was funded. One of the areas addressed in this proposal was the teaching of transient stability assessment (TSA) to the under- graduate students and development of software tools. Power system stability can be classi®ed into two major types namely: steady-state stability and trans- ient stability based on the nature of the disturbance, i.e., large or small. Correspondence to S. Muknahallipatna. ß 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 37