Electrical engineering is an extremely broad field of knowledge, which includes everything related to the use of electrical energy. This includes the development of circuits, devices, equipment and components, and the study of electromagnetic phenomena, their practical use. The scope of electrical engineering is all spheres of our life.
How it all began
The history of the development of electrical engineering is closely connected with mankind throughout the history of its development. People were interested in natural phenomena that they could not explain. The history of the development of electrical engineering - constant attempts to repeat what happened around.
The study went on for long and long centuries. But only in the seventeenth century did the history of the development of electrical engineering begin its countdown from the actual use of the acquired knowledge and skills by a person.
Theory
Scientists who have contributed to the development of electrical engineering are thousands and thousands of names, it is impossible to list all of them within the framework of this article. Butthere are individuals whose research helped make our world what it is today.
Historical data says: one of the first who turned his attention to the fact that after amber is rubbed against wool, it can attract objects, was the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus. He conducted his experiments in the seventh century BC. Unfortunately, he could not draw any fundamental conclusions. But he carefully recorded all his observations and passed them on to posterity.
The next name in the conditional list "electrical scientists and their inventions" appeared only in 1663, when Otto von Guericke designed a machine in the city of Magdeburg, which was a ball that could not only attract, but also repel objects.
Famous scientists
Subsequently, the beginning of electrical engineering was laid by such famous scientists as:
- Stephen Gray, who conducted experiments on the transmission of electricity at a distance. The result of his research was the conclusion that objects transfer charge differently.
- Charles Dufay, who put forward the theory of different types of electricity.
- Dutch Peter van Muschenbroek. He became famous for inventing the capacitor.
- Georg Richmann and Mikhail Lomonosov actively studied the phenomenon.
- Benjamin Franklin. This man went down in history as the inventor of the lightning rod.
- Luigi Galvani.
- Vasily Petrov.
- Charles Pendant.
- Hans Oersted.
- Alessandro Volta.
- Andre Ampère.
- Michael Faraday and many others.
Energy
Electrical engineering is a science that contains four components, the first and basic of which is the electric power industry. It is the science of generation, transmission and consumption of energy. Mankind was able to successfully use this technology for their needs only in the 19th century.
Primitive batteries allowed devices to work only for a while, which did not satisfy the ambitions of scientists. The inventor of the first prototype of the generator was the Hungarian Anosh Jedlik in 1827. Unfortunately, the scientist did not patent his brainchild, and his name remained only in history textbooks.
Later the dynamo was modified by Hippolyte Pixie. The device is simple: a stator that creates a constant magnetic field, and a set of windings.
The history of the development of electrical engineering and energy cannot do without mentioning the name of Michael Faraday. It was he who invented the first generator, which made it possible to generate current and constant voltage. Subsequently, the mechanisms were improved by Emil Sterer, Henry Wilde, Zenob Gramm.
DC
In 1873, at an exhibition in Vienna, the start of a pump from a machine more than a kilometer away was clearly demonstrated.
Electricity confidently conquered the world. Mankind has access to such previously unknown novelties as the telegraph, the electric motor on cars and ships, and the lighting of cities. Huge dynamos were increasingly used to produce electricity on an industrial scale. The first trams and trolleybuses began to appear in the cities. The idea of direct current was massively introduced by the famous scientist Thomas Edison. However, this technology also had its drawbacks.
Theoretical electrical engineering in the works of scientists meant covering as many settlements and territories as possible with electricity. But direct current had an extremely limited range - about two or three kilometers, after which huge losses began. An important factor in the transition to alternating current was steel and the dimensions of generating machines, the size of a decent factory.
Nikola Tesla
The Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla is considered the founder of the new technology. He devoted his whole life to studying the possibilities of alternating current, transmitting it over a distance. Electrical engineering (for beginners this will be an interesting fact) is built on its basic principles. Today, every home has one of the creations of the great scientist.
The inventor gave the world polyphase generators, an asynchronous electric motor, a counter and many other inventions. Over the years in the telegraph, telephone companies, Edison laboratory and later in his enterprises, Tesla gained a lot of experience due to the huge number of experiments.
Humanity, unfortunately, has not received even a tenth of the scientist's discoveries. The owners of the oil fields were against the electric revolution in every possible way and tried to stop its progress by any means available to them.
According to rumors, Nikola couldcreate and stop hurricanes, transmit electricity without wires anywhere in the world, teleport a warship, and even provoke a meteorite fall in Siberia. This man was very extraordinary.
As it turned out later, Nikola was right in betting on alternating current. Electrical engineering (especially for beginners) first of all mentions its principles. He turned out to be right that electricity could be supplied thousands of miles away using only wires. In the case of a permanent “brother”, power plants must be located every two to three kilometers. In addition, they must be constantly serviced.
Today, direct current still has a place for electric transport - trams, trolleybuses, electric locomotives, engines in industrial enterprises, in batteries, chargers. However, given the development of technology, it is likely that the "permanent" will soon remain only on the pages of history.
Electromechanics
The second section of electrical engineering, which explains the principle of converting energy from mechanical to electrical and vice versa, is called electromechanics.
The first scientist who revealed his work on electromechanics to the world was the Swiss scientist Engelbert Arnold, who in 1891 published a work on the theory and design of windings for machines. Subsequently, world science was replenished with the results of research by Blondel, Vidmar, Kostenko, Dreyfus, Tolvinsky, Krug, Park.
In 1942, a Hungarian-AmericanGabriel Kron finally managed to formulate a generalized theory for all electrical machines and thus unite the efforts of many researchers over the past century.
Electromechanics enjoyed a stable interest of scientists all over the world, and subsequently such sciences as electrodynamics (studies the relationship between electrical and magnetic phenomena), mechanics (studies the movement of bodies and interactions between them), and also thermal physics (theoretical foundations energy, thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer) and others.
The main problems that were studied in the research were the study and development of transducers, rotating magnetic field, linear current load, Arnold's constant. The main topics are electrical and asynchronous machines, various types of transformers.
Postulates of electromechanics
The main three postulates of electromechanics are the laws:
- Faraday's electromagnetic induction;
- full current for magnetic circuit;
- electromagnetic force (aka Ampère's Law).
As a result of research by electromechanical scientists, it was proved that the movement of energy is impossible without losses, all machines can operate both as an engine and as a generator, and that the fields of the rotor and stator are always stationary relative to each other friend.
Basic formulas are equations:
- electric machine;
- voltage balance of the windings of an electrical machine;
- electromagnetic torque.
Automatic control systems
The direction inevitably became popular after it became clear that machines could successfully replace human labor.
Automatic control - the ability to manipulate the operation of other devices or even entire systems. The control can be done by temperature, speed, movement, angles and travel speed. Manipulation can be carried out both in full automatic mode and with the participation of a person.
The first machine of this kind can be considered a unit designed by Charles Babage. With the help of information stored in punched cards, pumps could be controlled using a steam engine.
The first computer was described in the writings of the Irish scientist Percy Ludgate, which were presented to the public in 1909.
Analog computing devices appeared just before the outbreak of World War II. The hostilities somewhat slowed down the development of this promising industry.
The first prototype of the modern computer was created by the German Konrad Zuse in 1938.
Today, automatic control systems, as intended by their inventors, successfully replace people in production, performing the most monotonous and dangerous work.
Electronics
The next stage in the development of electrical engineering was electronic devices that are billions of times more accurate than their analog counterparts.
The most famous first invention is the German Enigma cipher machine. And then the Britishelectronic decoders, with which they tried to decipher the tangled codes.
Next were calculators and computers.
At the current stage of life, phones and tablets are associated with electronics. And what will be the development of our devices tomorrow, we can only guess. But scientists work day and night just to surprise us all and make life a little more interesting and easier.
