
PREFACE
This book is intended for non-specialist users of electric
motors and drives. It fills the gap between specialist text-
books (which are pitched at a level which is too academic for
the average user) and the more prosaic 'handbooks' which
are filled with useful detail but provide little opportunity
for the development of any real insight or understanding.
Exciting and radical changes have taken place in motors
and drives over the past twenty years, and the contemporary
scene is now very different from the old order. For more than
a century, different types of motor continued to be
developed, and each became closely associated with a