the curves of instantaneous E.M.F. are therefore similar in shape to that of the single wire (fig. 4), but with their ordinates raised throughout to double their former height, as shown at the foot of fig. 6.
Next, if the free ends of either the ring or drum loops, instead of being connected to two collecting rings, are attached to the two halves of a split-ring insulated from the shaft (as shown in fig. 7 in connexion with a drum armature), and the stationary brushes are so set relatively to the loops that they pass over from the one half of the split-ring to the other half at the moment when the loops are passing the centre of the interpolar gap, and so are giving little or no E.M.F., each brush will always remain either positive or negative. The current in the external circuit attached to the brushes will then have a constant direction, although the E.M.F. in the active wires still remains alternating; the curve of E.M.F. obtained at the brushes is thus (as in fig. 7) entirely above the zero line. The first dynamo of H. Pixii,[1] which immediately followed Faraday’s discovery, gave an alternating current, but in 1832[2] the alternator was converted into a machine giving a unidirected current by the substitution of a rudimentary “commutator” in place of mercury collecting cups.
(B) So far the length of the active wires has been parallel to the axis of rotation, but they may equally well be arranged perpendicularly thereto. The poles will then have plane faces and the active wires will be disposed with their length approximately radial to the axis of the shaft. In order to add their E.M.F.’s in series, two types of winding may be employed, which are precisely analogous in principle to the ring and drum windings under arrangement (A).
3. The discoidal or flat-ring armature is equivalent to a ring of which the radial depth greatly exceeds the length, with the poles presented to one side of the ring instead of embracing its cylindrical surface. A similar set of poles is also presented to the opposite side of the ring, like poles being opposite to one another, so that in effect each polar surface is divided into two halves, and the groups of lines from each side bifurcate and pass circumferentially through the armature core to issue into the adjacent poles of opposite sign.
4. In the disk machine, no iron core is necessary for the armature, the two opposite poles of unlike sign being brought close together, leaving but a short path for the lines in the air-gap through which the active wires are rotated.
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| Fig. 8. |
If the above elementary dynamos are compared with fig. 1, it will be found that they all possess a distinctive feature which is not present in the original disk machine of Faraday. In the four types of machine above described each active wire in each revolution first cuts the group of lines forming a field in one direction, and then cuts the same lines again in the opposite direction relatively to the sense of the lines, so that along the length of the wire the E.M.F. alternates in direction. But in the dynamo of fig. 1 the sector of the copper disk which is at any moment moving through the magnetic field and which forms the single active element is always cutting the lines in the same manner, so that the E.M.F. generated along its radial length is continuous and unchanged in direction. This radical distinction differentiates the two classes of heteropolar and homopolar dynamos, Faraday’s disk machine of fig. 1 being the type of the latter class. In it the active element may be arranged either parallel or at right angles to the axis of rotation; but in both cases, in order to increase the E.M.F. by placing two or more elements in series, it becomes necessary either (1) to employ some form of sliding contact by which the current may be collected from the end of one active element and passed round a connecting wire into the next element without again cutting the field in the reverse direction, or (2) to form on the armature a loop of which each side is alternately active and inactive. The first method limits the possibilities of the homopolar machine so greatly when large currents and high voltages are required that it is now only used in rare instances, as e.g. occasionally in dynamos driven by steam-turbines which have a very high speed of rotation. The second alternative may be carried into effect with any of the four methods of armature winding, but is practically confined to the drum and disk types. In its drum form the field is divided into two or more projecting poles, all of the same sign, with intervening neutral spaces of equal width, and the span of the loop in the direction of rotation is at least equal to the width of a polar projection, as in fig. 8, where two polar projections are shown. Each side of the loop then plays a dual part; it first cuts the lines of one polar projection and generates an E.M.F., and next becomes an inactive connecting wire, while the action is taken up by the opposite side of the loop which has previously served as a connector but now cuts the lines of the next polar projection. The E.M.F. is thus always in the same direction along the side which is at any moment active, but alternates round the loop as a whole, and the distinctive peculiarity of the homopolar machine, so soon as any form of “winding” is introduced into its armature, is lost. It results that the homopolar principle, which would prima facie appear specially suitable for the generation of a unidirectional E.M.F. and continuous current, can seldom be used for this purpose and is practically confined to alternators. It may therefore be said that in almost all dynamos, whether they supply an alternating or a continuous current in the external circuit, the E.M.F. and current in the armature are alternating.
Ring winding was largely employed in early continuous-current dynamos and also in the alternators of Gramme and H. Wilde, and later of Auguste de Méritens. Disk winding was also successfully introduced for alternators, as in the magneto-machines of Nollet (1849) and the alternators of Wilde (1866) and Siemens (1878), and its use was continued in the machines of W. M. Mordey and S. Z. Ferranti. But although the ring, discoidal-ring and disk methods of winding deserve mention from their historical importance, experience has shown that drum winding possesses a marked superiority for both electrical and manufacturing reasons; the three former methods have in fact been practically discarded in its favour, so that the drum method will hereafter alone be considered.
The drum coil, composed of several loops wound side by side, may therefore be regarded as the constituent active element out of which the armature winding of the modern dynamo is developed. Its application to the multipolar machine is easily followed from fig. 9, which illustrates the heteropolar type of dynamo. The span of the loops, which is nearly 180° or across the diameter of the two-pole machine, is reduced approximately to 90° in the four-pole or to 60° in the six-pole machine and so on, the curvature of the coil becoming gradually less as the number of poles is increased. The passage of a coil through two magnetic fields of opposite direction yields a complete wave of E.M.F., such as is shown in fig. 6, and the time in seconds taken to pass through such a complete cycle is the “period” of the alternating E.M.F. The number of complete periods through which the E.M.F. of the coil passes per second is called the “periodicity” or “frequency” of the machine. In the bipolar machine this
- ↑ Ann. Chim. Phys. l. 322.
- ↑ Ibid. li. 76. Since in H. Pixii’s machine the armature was stationary, while both magnet and commutator rotated, four brushes were used, and the arrangement was not so simple as the split-ring described above, although the result was the same. J. Saxton’s machine (1833) and E. M. Clarke’s machine (1835, see Sturgeon’s Annals of Electricity, i. 145) were similar to one another in that a unidirected current was obtained by utilizing every alternate half-wave of E.M.F., but the former still employed mercury collecting cups, while the latter employed metal brushes. W. Sturgeon in 1835 followed Pixii in utilizing the entire wave of E.M.F., and abandoned the mercury cups in favour of metal brushes pressing on four semicircular disks (Scientific Researches, p. 252). The simple split-ring is described by Sir C. Wheatstone and Sir W. F. Cooke in their Patent No. 8345 (1840).
