Why odd harmonics are harmful

Harmonics causes malfunctioning of electrical/electronic parts, overheating of neutral wires, transformer heating, and malfunctioning of power factor correction capacitors, power generation and transmission losses, disruption of protection, control and communication networks as well as customer loads.

1. Which harmonics are most dangerous even or odd?
2. Why are only odd harmonics observed?
3. Do even or odd harmonics sound better?
4. Why do we use odd harmonics?

Which harmonics are most dangerous even or odd?

In practice, we do see even harmonics appear, of approximately 1% amplitude compared to line frequency. Even harmonics are often smaller in amplitude than odd harmonics, but produce more detrimental effects on power systems.

Why are only odd harmonics observed?

Most electrical loads (except half-wave rectifiers) produce symmetrical current waveforms, which means that the positive half of the waveform looks like a mirror image of the negative half. This results in only odd harmonic values being present.

Do even or odd harmonics sound better?

Second-order or 'even' harmonics are even-numbered multiples of the fundamental frequencies and create a rich, pleasing sound. Third-order or 'odd' harmonics are odd-numbered multiples of the fundamental frequencies, which give the signal an edgier, more aggressive sound.

Why do we use odd harmonics?

So, one gas to arrange the switches to keep such symmetries in the out put waveform such that the waveform will not be distorted much from the requested sine wave. The odd harmonics will preserve the two symmetries while the the even harmonics will break the even symmetry.