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Like its predecessors, the third edition of this book is intended primarily
for non-specialist users and students of electric motors and drives.
My original aim was to bridge the gap between specialist textbooks
(which are pitched at a level too academic for the average user) and
the more prosaic ‘handbooks’, which are full of useful detail but provide
little opportunity for the development of any real insight or understanding.
The fact that the second edition was reprinted ten times indicated
that there had indeed been a gap in the market, and that a third edition
would be worthwhile. It was also gratifying to learn that although the
original book was not intended as yet another undergraduate textbook,
teachers and students had welcomed the book as a gentle introduction to
the subject.
The aim throughout is to provide the reader with an understanding of
how each motor and drive system works, in the belief that it is only by
knowing what should happen that informed judgements and sound
comparisons can be made. Given that the book is aimed at readers
from a range of disciplines, introductory material on motors and
power electronics is clearly necessary, and this is presented in the first
two chapters. Many of these basic ideas crop up frequently throughout
the book, so unless the reader is well-versed in the fundamentals it
would be wise to absorb the first two chapters before tackling the later
material. In addition, an awareness of the basic ideas underlying
feedback and closed-loop control is necessary in order to follow the
sections dealing with drives, and this has now been provided as an
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