FAQ | Feb 09,2023
Alternating current, AC for short. Alternating current is also called “alternating current”, abbreviated as “AC”. Generally refers to a voltage or current that varies periodically from time to time in magnitude and direction. Its most basic form is sinusoidal current.
a novel system of electric distribution and transmission of power by means of alternate currents, affording peculiar advantages, particularly in the way of motors, which will at once establish the superior adaptability of these currents to the transmission of power, and will show that many results heretofore unattainable can be reached by their use; results which are very much desired in the practical operation of such systems, and which cannot be accomplished by means of continuous currents.
In our dynamo machines, it is well known, we generate alternate currents which we direct by means of a commutator, a complicated device and, it may be justly said, the source of most of the troubles experienced in the operation of the machines. Now, the currents so directed cannot be utilised in the motor, but they must — again by means of a similar unreliable device — be reconverted into their original state of alternate currents. The function of the commutator is entirely external, and in no way does it affect the external working of the machines. In reality, therefore, all machines are alternate current machines, the currents appearing as continuous only in the external circuit during their transit from generator to motor. In view simply of this fact, alternate currents would commend themselves as a more direct application of electrical energy, and the employment of continuous currents would only be justified if we had dynamos which would primarily generate, and motors which would be directly actuated by such currents.
But the operation of the commutator on a motor is twofold; firstly, it reverses the currents through the motor, and secondly, it effects, automatically, a progressive shifting of the poles of one of its magnetic constituents.
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