René Thury
Encyclopedia
René Thury was a Swiss
pioneer in electrical engineering
. He was known for his work with high voltage direct current electricity transmission and was known in the professional world as the "King of DC."
of Zénobe Gramme
. When Bürgin left SIP in 1876, Thury became his successor. He was also served as a laboratory technician of Prof. Jacques-Louis Soret
at the University of Geneva
. Soret had acquired a Burgin dynamo placing it in series with batteries, and Thury secretly devised a means to make the batteries superfluous.
In 1877, he built a steam powered tricycle along with a medical student Jean-Jacques Nussberger who financed the project. It could reach 50 km/h and would be one of the first Swiss built cars. In 1904, Thury produced a gasoline electric parallel hybrid, whose all electric range was 40 km with a 550 kg battery, or 5 km with a 150 kg battery.
Some Swiss and German financiers were investigating financing a concession to build Edison company equipment and as part of this, Thury spent 6 months visiting the Menlo Park
labs of Thomas Edison
in the winter of 1880-1881. Thury was impressed with the latitude that Edison's researchers were given to pursue their ideas and developed a friendship with Edison. He gained many insights, but also came to the conclusion that Edison's Dynamos could be significantly improved. Back in Geneva, he directed the fabrication under SIP license of Edison and Gramme dynamos. He later worked briefly for Bürgin & Alioth, and then changed as technical director for the A. & H. de Meuron Cuénod, where he designed his multipole dynamo for which he was awarded a patent in 1883. During 1882, Thury built a six pole dynamo to this design that yielded a much more compact dynamo than those of Edison. At the 1884 Turin exhibition it won the gold medal. Over the period 1883 to 1926 his ideas resulted in 19 additional patents.
In 1885 he built a system to supply Bözingen (a municipality now part of Biel/Bienne
) with 30 kW of power generated from nearby Taubenlochschlucht gorge using DC transmission at 500 volts. After this he made some developments for electric railways.
Thury solved the problems of commutation
and built the first dynamo with voltages of up to 25,000 volts. He also developed the Thury control (Régulateur à Déclic).
After his resignation in 1910, he worked as a consultant, building in France a high-frequency generator for wireless telegraph transmissions operating at 40 kilohertz with a 1000 kW maximum output.
René Thury married Caroline Leuthold in 1889 and had five daughters and a son.
s to easily convert between voltages. Marcel Deprez explored early transmission using direct current
but avoiding transformers by placing generators and loads in series as arc light
systems of Charles F. Brush
did. Thury developed this idea into the first commercial system for high-voltage DC transmission, using generators in series to attain high transmission voltages.. Like Brush's dynamos, current is kept constant, and when increasing load demands more pressure, voltage is increased.
In 1889, the system was first put into service in Italy
by the Acquedotto de Ferrari-Galliera company. Earlier the company had built a water supply for Genoa from the Gorzente River, and were interested whether turbines for electrical generation might address their long standing problem of reducing excess pressure. The first turbine of 140 hp-metric was installed at Galvani station, which turned the two Thury 6-pole dynamos that each produce 1000 to 1100 volts at 45 amperes. In order to keep the same current, their speed varies from 20 to 475 rpm, regulated by changing the flow through the water turbine. The circuit supplied 15 motors along the line stretching to Genoa, including a 60 hp-metric motor at the railway station, and motor transformers at Central Electric Lighting Station in Genoa. Additional generation plants followed providing lighting as well as motive power to a number of mills, factories and railway repair shops.
An example of the mechanical voltage conversion employed was described for the lighting of Sampierdarena Train Station. The Thury system powered a 60 hp-metric motor which drove via belts twelve Siemens and two Technomasio dynamos for the station's lights. Genoa's Thury system was progressively upgraded to transmit 630 kW at 14 kV DC over a circuit distance of 120 km, using later dynamos capable of producing 2.5 megawatts (5000 volts at 500 amperes) using double commutators
to reduce the voltage on each commutator.
Thury systems were installed over the next few years at several sites:
The Moutiers-Lyon
system transmitted 20 megawatts of hydroelectric power a distance of 124 miles (199.6 km), including 6 miles (10 km) of underground cable. The system used eight series-connected generators with dual commutators for a total voltage of 150,000 volts between the poles, was steadily upgraded from 4.3 to 20 MW and ran from about 1906 until 1936. By 1913, fifteen Thury systems were in use in England, Hungary, Russia, Switzerland, France and Italy. Thury systems operated up to the 1930s, but the rotating conversion machinery required high maintenance and had high energy loss.
The main limitations of the Thury system was that series distribution meant greater opportunity for power failures. Placing loads in series means that since current must flow through each device to get to the next, if the circuit is broken in any of the devices, the current stops at all other loads. Such series distribution was possible with automatic short circuiting mechanisms as in the Thomson-Houston
and Brush high voltage DC arc light systems, but since each load is not independent as in modern parallel distribution, the approach was inherently more fragile.
Attention was turned to conversion of DC to lower voltages that was more efficient and less cumbersome that mechanically driving smaller generators as in the Sampierdarena Railway station example.
This was a challenge for all DC systems because the induction principle used in the step down transformers pioneered by Lucien Gaulard
and ZBD
in the early 1880s only worked with AC. Not until grid controlled mercury arc valve
s became available for power transmission during the period 1920 to 1940 was it possible to utilize high-voltage direct current for large transmission projects, but by that time AC transmission was dominant, cheap and reliable.
! Name >
Converter Station 1
Converter Station 2
Cable (km)
Overhead line (km)
Voltage (kV)
Power (MW)
Year of inauguration
Year of decommissioning
Remarks
Gorzente River - Genoa DC transmission scheme
Italy - Gorzente River
Italy - Genoa
?
?
6
?
1889
?
upgraded later to a voltage of 14 kV, power of 2.5 MW and a length of 120 km, dismantled
La Chaux-de-Fonds DC transmission scheme
Switzerland - ?
Switzerland - ?
?
?
14
?
1897
?
dismantled
St. Maurice - Lausanne DC transmission scheme
Switzerland - St. Maurice
Switzerland - Lausanne
?
?
22
3.7
1899
?
dismantled
Lyon-Moutiers DC transmission scheme
France - Lyon
France - Moutiers
10
190
±75
30
1906
1936
Wilesden-Ironbridge DC transmission scheme
UK - Wilesden
UK - Ironbridge
22.5
?
100
?
1910
?
Chambéry DC transmission scheme
France - ?
France - ?
?
?
150
?
1925
1937
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
pioneer in electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
. He was known for his work with high voltage direct current electricity transmission and was known in the professional world as the "King of DC."
Biography
René Thury's father, Marc-Antoine Thury was a teacher of Natural History. From 1874 René became an apprentice at Société Instruments Physiques, a precision machine building firm in Geneva working working for Emil Bürgin who made refinements to the dynamosGramme machine
A Gramme machine, Gramme ring, Gramme magneto, or Gramme dynamo is an electrical generator which produces direct current, named for its Belgian inventor, Zénobe Gramme, and was built as either a dynamo or a magneto. It was the first generator to produce power on a commercial scale for industry...
of Zénobe Gramme
Zénobe Gramme
Zénobe Théophile Gramme was a Belgian electrical engineer. He invented the Gramme machine, a type of direct current dynamo capable of generating smoother and much higher voltages than the dynamos known to that point.In 1873 he and Hippolyte Fontaine accidentally discovered that the device was...
. When Bürgin left SIP in 1876, Thury became his successor. He was also served as a laboratory technician of Prof. Jacques-Louis Soret
Jacques-Louis Soret
Jacques-Louis Soret was a Swiss chemist who in 1878, along with Marc Delafontaine, first observed holmium spectroscopically. Independently, Per Teodor Cleve separated it chemically from thulium and erbium in 1879...
at the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
. Soret had acquired a Burgin dynamo placing it in series with batteries, and Thury secretly devised a means to make the batteries superfluous.
In 1877, he built a steam powered tricycle along with a medical student Jean-Jacques Nussberger who financed the project. It could reach 50 km/h and would be one of the first Swiss built cars. In 1904, Thury produced a gasoline electric parallel hybrid, whose all electric range was 40 km with a 550 kg battery, or 5 km with a 150 kg battery.
Some Swiss and German financiers were investigating financing a concession to build Edison company equipment and as part of this, Thury spent 6 months visiting the Menlo Park
Edison, New Jersey
Edison Township is a township in Middlesex County, New Jersey. What is now Edison Township was originally incorporated as Raritan Township by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1870, from portions of both Piscataway Township and Woodbridge Township...
labs of Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
in the winter of 1880-1881. Thury was impressed with the latitude that Edison's researchers were given to pursue their ideas and developed a friendship with Edison. He gained many insights, but also came to the conclusion that Edison's Dynamos could be significantly improved. Back in Geneva, he directed the fabrication under SIP license of Edison and Gramme dynamos. He later worked briefly for Bürgin & Alioth, and then changed as technical director for the A. & H. de Meuron Cuénod, where he designed his multipole dynamo for which he was awarded a patent in 1883. During 1882, Thury built a six pole dynamo to this design that yielded a much more compact dynamo than those of Edison. At the 1884 Turin exhibition it won the gold medal. Over the period 1883 to 1926 his ideas resulted in 19 additional patents.
Biel/Bienne
Biel/Bienne is a city in the district of the Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.It is located on the language boundary and is throughout bilingual. Biel is the German name for the town, Bienne its French counterpart. The town is often referred to in both...
) with 30 kW of power generated from nearby Taubenlochschlucht gorge using DC transmission at 500 volts. After this he made some developments for electric railways.
Thury solved the problems of commutation
Commutator (electric)
A commutator is a rotary electrical switch in certain types of electric motors or electrical generators that periodically reverses the current direction between the rotor and the external circuit. In a motor, it applies power to the best location on the rotor, and in a generator, picks off power...
and built the first dynamo with voltages of up to 25,000 volts. He also developed the Thury control (Régulateur à Déclic).
After his resignation in 1910, he worked as a consultant, building in France a high-frequency generator for wireless telegraph transmissions operating at 40 kilohertz with a 1000 kW maximum output.
René Thury married Caroline Leuthold in 1889 and had five daughters and a son.
The Thury system
The war of the currents was won by alternating current because transmission of power at high voltage could use transformerTransformer
A transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors—the transformer's coils. A varying current in the first or primary winding creates a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core and thus a varying magnetic field...
s to easily convert between voltages. Marcel Deprez explored early transmission using direct current
Direct current
Direct current is the unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through...
but avoiding transformers by placing generators and loads in series as arc light
Arc Light
Arc Light is the debut novel by Eric L. Harry, a techno-thriller about limited nuclear war published in 1994 and written in 1991-2.As China and Russia clash in Siberia in June 1999, nuclear missiles strike the United States. The U.S. retaliates against Russia, and World War III begins...
systems of Charles F. Brush
Charles F. Brush
Charles Francis Brush was a U.S. inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist.-Biography:Born in Euclid Township, Ohio, Brush was raised on a farm about 10 miles from downtown Cleveland...
did. Thury developed this idea into the first commercial system for high-voltage DC transmission, using generators in series to attain high transmission voltages.. Like Brush's dynamos, current is kept constant, and when increasing load demands more pressure, voltage is increased.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
by the Acquedotto de Ferrari-Galliera company. Earlier the company had built a water supply for Genoa from the Gorzente River, and were interested whether turbines for electrical generation might address their long standing problem of reducing excess pressure. The first turbine of 140 hp-metric was installed at Galvani station, which turned the two Thury 6-pole dynamos that each produce 1000 to 1100 volts at 45 amperes. In order to keep the same current, their speed varies from 20 to 475 rpm, regulated by changing the flow through the water turbine. The circuit supplied 15 motors along the line stretching to Genoa, including a 60 hp-metric motor at the railway station, and motor transformers at Central Electric Lighting Station in Genoa. Additional generation plants followed providing lighting as well as motive power to a number of mills, factories and railway repair shops.
An example of the mechanical voltage conversion employed was described for the lighting of Sampierdarena Train Station. The Thury system powered a 60 hp-metric motor which drove via belts twelve Siemens and two Technomasio dynamos for the station's lights. Genoa's Thury system was progressively upgraded to transmit 630 kW at 14 kV DC over a circuit distance of 120 km, using later dynamos capable of producing 2.5 megawatts (5000 volts at 500 amperes) using double commutators
Commutator (electric)
A commutator is a rotary electrical switch in certain types of electric motors or electrical generators that periodically reverses the current direction between the rotor and the external circuit. In a motor, it applies power to the best location on the rotor, and in a generator, picks off power...
to reduce the voltage on each commutator.
Thury systems were installed over the next few years at several sites:
- 1889 first station at 6 kV supplying Genoa from Gorzente River hydro turbines.
- 1897 in La Chaux-de-Fonds (14 kV)
- 1899 between St-Maurice and Lausanne (22 kV, 3.7 megawatts)
- 1906 Lyon-Moutiers projectLyon-Moutiers DC transmission schemeThe Lyon–Moutiers DC transmission scheme was the most powerful mechanical high voltage direct current electric power transmission scheme ever built...
(final capacity: 20 megawatts, 125 kV, 230 km) - 1911 Metropolitan Electric Supply Company, London, 100-ampere 5,000-volt generators
The Moutiers-Lyon
Lyon-Moutiers DC transmission scheme
The Lyon–Moutiers DC transmission scheme was the most powerful mechanical high voltage direct current electric power transmission scheme ever built...
system transmitted 20 megawatts of hydroelectric power a distance of 124 miles (199.6 km), including 6 miles (10 km) of underground cable. The system used eight series-connected generators with dual commutators for a total voltage of 150,000 volts between the poles, was steadily upgraded from 4.3 to 20 MW and ran from about 1906 until 1936. By 1913, fifteen Thury systems were in use in England, Hungary, Russia, Switzerland, France and Italy. Thury systems operated up to the 1930s, but the rotating conversion machinery required high maintenance and had high energy loss.
The main limitations of the Thury system was that series distribution meant greater opportunity for power failures. Placing loads in series means that since current must flow through each device to get to the next, if the circuit is broken in any of the devices, the current stops at all other loads. Such series distribution was possible with automatic short circuiting mechanisms as in the Thomson-Houston
Thomson-Houston Electric Company
The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was a manufacturing company which was one of the precursors of the General Electric Company.The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was formed in 1883 in the United States when a group of Lynn, Massachusetts investors led by Charles A...
and Brush high voltage DC arc light systems, but since each load is not independent as in modern parallel distribution, the approach was inherently more fragile.
Attention was turned to conversion of DC to lower voltages that was more efficient and less cumbersome that mechanically driving smaller generators as in the Sampierdarena Railway station example.
Lucien Gaulard
Lucien Gaulard invented devices for the transmission of alternating current electrical energy.-Biography:Gaulard was born in Paris, France....
and ZBD
Károly Zipernowsky
Károly Zipernowsky was a Hungarian electrical engineer of Jewish descent. He was the co-inventor of the transformer and other AC technologies.-Biography:...
in the early 1880s only worked with AC. Not until grid controlled mercury arc valve
Mercury arc valve
A mercury-arc valve is a type of electrical rectifier used for converting high-voltage or high-current alternating current into direct current . Rectifiers of this type were used to provide power for industrial motors, electric railways, streetcars, and electric locomotives, as well as for...
s became available for power transmission during the period 1920 to 1940 was it possible to utilize high-voltage direct current for large transmission projects, but by that time AC transmission was dominant, cheap and reliable.
Realized Thury systems
An incomplete list of realized Thury systems.Lyon-Moutiers DC transmission scheme
The Lyon–Moutiers DC transmission scheme was the most powerful mechanical high voltage direct current electric power transmission scheme ever built...
External links
- http://w3public.ville-ge.ch/seg/xmlarchives.nsf/Attachments/thuryframeset.htm/$file/thuryframeset.htm?OpenElement