Thomas M. Blooming

Thomas M. Blooming is an electrical engineer whose coauthored Capacitor Application Issues by Thomas M. Blooming and Daniel J. Carnovale addresses practical use of capacitor banks in electric power systems. Its author biography describes work on power factor correction, harmonic filtering and related application measurements.^[ref]

A useful technical question is why improving fundamental displacement power factor can alter the response to other harmonic components. In an original lossless parallel LC circuit, the admittance isIts reactive terms cancel at the resonant frequencyFor stipulated $L=10\mathrm{mH}$ and $C=100\mu \mathrm{F}$, $f_r\approx 159.15\mathrm{Hz}$. Doubling $C$ moves it to about $112.54\mathrm{Hz}$. A correction component chosen for one operating frequency has therefore changed the network at other frequencies as well.

In this ideal parallel model the impedance diverges at resonance; a finite imposed harmonic electric current would demand an unbounded electric potential difference, signaling the ideal model's limit. Real losses and other network elements bound and shift the response. A proposed bench test uses a small known drive and sweeps frequency with and without the extra capacitor, recording both current and potential difference. It tests the frequency-dependent circuit rather than inferring behavior from the fundamental cosine alone.

The calculation is an original illustration of the network question, not an experimental result attributed to Blooming. His joint paper with Daniel J. Carnovale supplies the application context: component choice and operating conditions must be considered together. A correction that looks favorable in a single-frequency power factor calculation is not, by that fact alone, characterized across the full waveform.