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| Lucien Gaulard | |
|---|---|
| Born | 16 July 1850 (1850-07-16) Paris, France |
| Died | 26 November 1888 (1888-11-27) (aged 38) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Inventor |
Lucien Gaulard (16 July 1850 – 26 November 1888) was a French engineer who invented devices for the transmission of alternating current electrical energy.
Biography
Gaulard was born in Paris, France in 1850.
A power transformer developed by Gaulard of France and John Dixon Gibbs of England was demonstrated in London, and attracted the interest of Westinghouse. Gaulard and Gibbs first exhibited a device in London in 1881 and then sold the idea to the American company Westinghouse. They also exhibited the invention in Turin in 1884, where it was adopted for an electric lighting system. Many of the features of their design were adapted to the particular laws governing electrical distribution in the UK.
In 1882, 1884, and 1885 Gaulard and Gibbs applied for patents on their transformer; however, these were overturned due to actions initiated by Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti and others.
Their open-core device used a fixed 1:1 ratio to supply a series circuit for the utilization load (lamps). The voltage of their fixed 1:1 ratio system was reduced and controlled by pushing in and pulling out its open iron core.
In 1885, William Stanley, Jr. built the first practical American transformer based on Gaulard and Gibbs's idea, the precursor of the modern transformer. Transformers were nothing new, but the Gaulard-Gibbs design was one of the first that could handle large amounts of power and promised to be easy to manufacture. Westinghouse imported a number of Gaulard-Gibbs transformers and a Siemens AC generator to begin experimenting with AC networks in Pittsburgh.
Gaulard died in an institution (Sainte-Anne Hospital) in Paris, and was said to have lost his reason due to the loss of the patents on his invention. Several months before his death, Gaulard appeared at the Elysee asking the concierge to conduct him to the president of France, for whom, he said, he had an urgent message. The message was "I am God and God does not wait". He has been described as an inventor whose ingenuity cost him not only his money, but reason and life as well. A tablet was erected to Gaulard at Lanzo Torinese.
Patents
See also
References
- Citations
- Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Societies 1880-1930, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1983 ISBN 0-8018-2873-2
- Halacsy, Andrew; Fuchs, George (April 1961). "Transformer Invented 75 Years Ago". Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Part III: Power Apparatus and Systems. 80 (3): 121–125. doi:10.1109/AIEEPAS.1961.4500994. S2CID 51632693. Archived from the original on November 28, 2023. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - Hughes, pg. 94
- Hughes, pg. 94
- Pierre Rousseau, L'Histoire des techniques et des inventiones (Paris: Fayard, 1958) p.477.
- Electric engineer, Biggs & Co, 1890. Page 271.