Siemens' Dynamo
The war of 1866 between Austria and Prussia and the certainty of a coming struggle with France turned the attention of German inventors to the use of electricity in warfare. Werner von Siemens, an artillery officer, was improving an exploding device for mines. An electric current was needed to produce a spark or heat a wire to redness in the powder. Faraday had used a coil of wire turning between the poles of a steel magnet to produce a current. In England a coil turning between the poles of an electromagnet had been used, but the electromagnet received its current from another machine in which a steel magnet was used. Siemens found that the steel magnet could be dispensed with, and that a coil turning between the poles of an electromagnet could furnish the current for the electromagnet. Two things are needed, then, to make a dynamo: an electromagnet and a coil to turn between the poles of that magnet. The rotating coil, which usually contains a soft-iron core, is called the "armature." The coil will furnish current for the magnet and some to spare; in fact, only a small part of the current induced in the coil is needed to keep the magnet up to its full strength, and the greater part of the current may be used for lighting or power. The new machine was named by its inventor "the dynamo-electric machine." The name has since been shortened to "dynamo." The first practical problem which the dynamo solved was the construction of an electric exploding apparatus without the use of steel magnets or batteries. A dynamo with Siemens' armature is shown in Fig. 45.
FIG. 45–A DYNAMO WITH SIEMENS' ARMATURE
In his first enthusiasm the inventor dreamed of great things for the new machine, among others an electric street railway in Berlin. But the dynamo was not yet ready. The difficulty was the heating of the iron core of the armature, caused by the action of induced currents. There are induced currents in the iron core as well as in the coil, and, for the same reason, the coil and the iron core within it are both moving in a magnetic field. These little currents circling round and round in the iron core produce heat. The rapid changing of the magnetism of the iron also heats the iron.
It remained for Gramme, in France, to apply the proper remedy. This remedy was an armature in which the coil was wound on an iron ring, invented by an Italian, Pacinotti. Gramme applied the principle discovered by Siemens to Pacinotti's ring, and produced the first practical dynamo for strong currents. This was in 1868. A ring armature is shown in Fig. 46. The first dynamo patented in the United States is shown in Fig. 47. This dynamo is only a curiosity.
FIG. 46–RING ARMATURE