B22 - History of Transformers -Timelines- Part 4

In part 3 we saw how the engineers from Ganz Hungary developed and patented transformers in 1885.

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??????? ?In this part we will see the transformer developments in USA in1886 and history timelines till 1890.

1886

• February The Westinghouse Electric Co. was formed in the USA. George Westinghouse purchased patent rights for the Gaulard -Gibbs converter system from Europe.
• George Westinghouse saw an opportunity to develop AC power systems when they performed well in European rudimentary tests. He bought a Siemens Generator and the rights to the Gaulard and Gibbs transformer ( or converter as per the term then) and assigned his best engineers, William Stanley, Albert Schmid and Oliver B. Shallenberger, to improve it. Stanley was the primary innovator in developing a type of transformer with E-shaped plates and a complex set of windings.

• March Working under contract for Westinghouse, William Stanley designed and installed the first AC transmission system in the United States. He strung about 1200 metres of No6 AWG (4.1 mm dia) copper wire, fastened to insulators nailed to trees from his lab (earlier a rubber factory) to the town centre- Great Barrington, MA, USA. Stanley used a 25 HP steam engine to drive the Siemens alternator to get 500V at 1331/3 cycles (the term during those days was 16,000 alternations per minute). Then he used shell-type 500/100 V step-down transformers at receiving end in town (modified from Gaulard-Gibbs converters) to get 100 V?to light up electric bulbs in the post office, two dentists' offices, the telephone exchange, and a handful of Great Barrington stores.
• ?On March 6, Stanley lit the downtown and rejoiced with the townspeople. The system lit both businesses and the street with 150, 50, and 16 candlepower incandescent lamps. Stanley remarked that people were happy but maintained some distance from the lights as they feared them!

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• Later the same day, Stanley dined with Massachusetts legislator Senator Hosmer at his home. Stanley had been calling his transformers "converters" as there was no better name for them. Senator Hosmer suggested "transformer"; thus, in a rare instance, a politician coined the term for an engineer's device.

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• This event inspired George Westinghouse to dive into AC's current system development (against DC used till then) with significant resources. This venture led to Westinghouse's outstanding achievements a few years later, which led to General Electric's formation as an opposition to Westinghouse's success.

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• William Stanley developed his first transformer in 1985-86 using a doughnut core, like the Ganz, Hungary transformer model. He hooked up the transformers in parallel instead of in series as done till then. Stanley then made a series of evolutionary steps for producing transformers in bulk. He made the core out of easily stamped-out E-shaped thin steel laminations with the two coils wrapped around the middle leg of the E and another set of steel plates bolted across the open ends to secure coils in place and to get a closed magnetic path in the core. He learned how to proportion the magnetic and electric circuits to minimize energy loss when there was no electrical load on the system. (no-load losses) and to get constant secondary voltage irrespective of the number of lamps connected across the secondary terminals. The second aspect was significant for light bulbs' efficiency and life.

• May- The AC hydropower plant at Thornberg, near Lucerne in Switzerland, was commissioned and transmitted power through the 1.8 kV single-phase line for 4.8 km. Transformers stepped down power to 100 V to illuminate hotels and restaurants in downtown areas. (wiki)
• September 21- William Stanley Jr (Colleague of Westinghouse) took the US patent (No 349 611) for two winding transformers.

1887

• ?Prof. Elihu Thomson (USA) took a patent for using mineral oil in transformers, followed by a British patent in 1891.

1888 ?

• Tesla explained polyphase AC motors and generators. His patents of 1988 showed single-phase, two-phase, three-phase, four-phase and 6 phase electric power.

?1889?

• Ganz Works, Hungary, made the 1000th transformer.
• At Stafford, UK, they built the first transformer as per the design of the Siemens brothers. Later, this company became English Electric Co. and GEC Power Transformers Ltd, GEC- Alstom, and then Areva, and now it is under GE, USA.
• Megger, UK, developed its first Insulation Tester.
• Michael Dolivo-Dobrowolski (also written as Mikhail Dolivo Dobrovolsky-1862-1919) was Polish-Russian born, educated in Germany, and employed as an engineer of AEG (1889-1919), Germany, took a patent for three-phase transformers.
• ?He developed the first three-phase transformer in Germany at AEG. He had made the first three-phase generator one year before. Dobrowolski used his transformer in the world's first powerful complete AC three-phase power line. (Alternator + Transformer + Transmission + Transformer + Electric Motors and Lamps) in 1891-Lauffen to Frankfurt, 175 km 3 phase line.
• Electric Company, Oregon, commissioned the first US AC hydropower plant at Willamette with the 23 km line to Portland for arc lighting.
• Schwinburne proposed oil for transformer insulation; Maschinen Fabrik Oerlikon (Switzerland) delivered the first oil-filled transformers for German utility EW Reichenhall.
• Transformer with the Delta-Y connection was in use for the first time.
• The First Book on Transformers was published- History of the Transformer by F. Upperborn, a German 'electrician' in charge of a power station.
• Published the first comprehensive volume on transformers in London, UK. The Alternate Current Transformer in Theory and Practice -Vol 1- Induction of Electric Currents, Vol 2- The Utilization of Induction Currents. These volumes were written by Sir John Ambrose Fleming, the first Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University College of London and published by "The Electrician Press, London, in 1889. The Electrician was the first journal of Electrical Engineering – A weekly journal of telegraphy, electricity, and applied chemistry, published in London, UK, from 1861 to 1952.

• Dr Fleming went on revising these volumes and published several editions till 1925 when the first edition of the J&P Transformer book was published. Until then, Fleming's book on Transformers was the most popular one on the subject. Later, Fleming's interest shifted to electronics, and he became the Father of Modern Electronics by inventing the thermionic valve (vacuum tube) and developing radio transmission along with Marconi.

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