X-Nico

8 unusual facts about alternating current


Alternating current

Off-shore, military, textile industry, marine, computer mainframe, aircraft, and spacecraft applications sometimes use 400 Hz, for benefits of reduced weight of apparatus or higher motor speeds.

William Stanley, Jr. designed one of the first practical devices to transfer AC power efficiently between isolated circuits.

Căile Ferate Române

All are built for standard gauge (1435 mm) and run using a catenary wire at 50 Hz 25 kV AC.

Faraday's ice pail experiment

Stray static electric charges on the experimenter's body, clothes, or nearby apparatus, as well as AC electric fields from mains-powered equipment, can induce additional charges on parts of the container or charged object C, giving a false reading.

Hemopump

The power is derived from AC lines with battery backup for portable use.This is incorporated into a console.

Pollen tube

Another report states that pollen tubes do not change growth direction under AC electric fields.

UIC 568

This cable carries single-phase electric power at 1500 volts AC, 50 Hz (with the tracks as the ground connection), supplied from the locomotive, or in some cases a carriage with a generator.

Wolfson Centre for Magnetics

The power loss, permeability, apparent power, flux density, magnetic field, Barkhausen noise, magnetostriction characteristics of soft magnetic materials and hard magnetic materials can be measured with a range of test systems under DC, AC and rotational magnetising conditions.


AC module

An AC module is a photovoltaic module which has a small AC inverter mounted onto its back side which produces AC power with no external DC connector.

Ames, Colorado

Ames was the site of the world's first commercial system to generate and transmit alternating current electricity, the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant.

Audio power

Since the instantaneous power of an AC waveform varies over time, AC power, which includes audio power, is typically measured as an average over time.

Electrical network

They are thus more easily analyzed, using powerful frequency domain methods such as Laplace transforms, to determine DC response, AC response, and transient response.

Electrocution

It was promoted by inventor Thomas Edison, who built the first electric chair, and conducted many public tests on animals, using alternating current (AC) electricity.

Electronics

Rasberry crazy ants have been known to consume the insides of electrical wiring, and nest inside of electronics; they prefer DC to AC currents.

Extra-low voltage

The International Electrotechnical Commission and its member organizations define an ELV circuit as one in which the electrical potential of any conductor against earth (ground) is not more than either 25 volts RMS (35 volts peak) for alternating current, or ripple-free 60 volts for direct current under dry conditions.

KTM Class 81

All Komuter EMUs operate in multiple-unit formation, running from overhead single-phase 25 kV AC 50 Hz catenary supply, with two driving cars and 1 - 3 trailer cars in between.

KTM Komuter

All Komuter EMUs operate in multiple-unit formation, running from overhead single-phase 25kV AC 50 Hz catenary supply, with two driving cars and 1 - 3 trailer cars in between.

Luigi von Kunits

At Chicago's Columbian Exposition he witnessed Nikola Tesla's alternating current system running everything mechanical, not to mention the illumination of the entire exposition itself.

MPI HSP46

AC traction systems, prime movers, head end power equipment, and computer systems are supplied by GE, while MPI supplies the brake systems, air systems, and cooling systems.

Ophir, Colorado

Ophir was the site of the world's first commercial system to generate and transmit alternating current electricity, the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant.

Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis

At Columbia University in 1984, David C. Schwartz and Charles Cantor developed a variation on the standard protocol by introducing an alternating voltage gradient to improve the resolution of larger molecules.

Schöneweide–Spindlersfeld branch line

From 15 August 1903, overhead electrification with AC power (6 kV, 25 Hz) was tested on the line by the company Union-Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (UEG), which merged the following year with AEG.

Shorepower

Batteries on a vessel may be used to power an inverter (SMPS) capable of producing AC, which can be used for appliances that require AC power.

Sistema Interconectado del Norte Grande

The Sistema Interconectado del Norte Grande (Spanish for Interconnected System of Norte Grande) or SING is an alternating current power grid serving the Norte Grande zone of Chile, it produces 19% of the national power generation.

Thyristor drive

A thyristor drive is a motor drive circuit where AC supply current is regulated by a thyristor phase control to provide variable voltage to a DC motor.

Variable-speed air compressor

The most common form of VSD technology in the air compressor industry is a variable-frequency drive, which converts the incoming AC power to DC and then back to a quasi-sinusoidal AC power using an inverter switching circuit.


see also

Neuhof Substation

The Neuhof substation went in service in 1985 and was connected with a 110 kV-powerline for three phase alternating current with the Wolkramshausen substation in former East Germany.

Triac

TRIAC (triode for alternating current), an electronics component

Tsukuba Express

To prevent interference with the geomagnetic measurements of the Japan Meteorological Agency at its laboratory in Yasato, Niihari District, Ibaraki, the portion of the line from Moriya to Tsukuba operates on alternating current.