A SteinmetzContribution Power Revolution

Introduced by JAMES E. BRlTTAlN

to the AC

EDITORIAL

COMMENTARY

Steinmetz delivered thisclassic paper on a January evening when bad weatherwas blamed for a low turn out. Thomas D. Lockwood, who introducedthe paper, commented on the weather and the small audience with a play on two obsoleteelectrical terms, quantity andintensity. Hestated that what welack in quantity,wemustmake up in intensity of hearing. Theac power revolution that began in the1880s created new and critical problems for the designers of electrical machines, apparatus, and systems. In this and later papers, Steinmetzundertook to show ac engineers how to measure, analyze, and predict the effect of iron losses in magneticcircuitssuch as thoseencountered in thedesign of transformers.Theterm magnetic hysteresis had been introduced by the British scientist J. A. Ewing in 1881. While studying some of Ewings data on hysteresis loss, Steinmetz discovered that theloss varied as the 1.6th power of the magnetic fluxdensity. Hedisclosedtheproposedlaw in a brief article published in The Electrical Engineer in December 1890 but it attracted little attention until publicationof his two major AIEE papers in 1892. In his paper, presented in September 1892, Steinmetz included a section on the physical theory of hysteresis. Thediscussants of Steinmetzhysteresispapersexpressed a sense of awe as well as pride thatsuch sophisticated technical papers were now being produced in the U.S. Charles S. Bradley stated that the AIEE was fortunate in having a member who can tackle such a subject. He continued that such research was unusual in America where commercial our age will hardly permit us to devoteour timeto such experiments and carry them out as they should be. William Stanley, a pioneer innovator in the field of ac power, credited Steinmetz with having done for the magnetic circuit what Ohm had done for the electric circuit. Stanley was impressed by the precision of the data and commented that engineers generally had regarded data carried out to the third decimal point as rather uninteresting. Frank Sprague characterized Steinmetz as being one of the ablest mathematicians of this Institute who was investigating hysteresis for months both dayand night. As a brilliant experimenter,theorist,andcommunicator,Steinmetz contributed more than any other member of his generation to the education of the American electrical engineering profession on the principles of alternating current.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865-1923)was born in Breslau,Germany (now Wroctaw, Poland), as Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz, later changing his name when he came to America. In 1882, he enrolled at the University in Breslau to prepare for a career as a mathematics professor. He had completeda doctoral thesis by 1888, but, before being awarded his degree, he was forcedto flee to Switzerland to avoid arrest because of his participation in a student socialist movement. He studied mechanical engineering for a year at the Polytechnic School in Zurich before coming to the U.S. in 1889.His first employer was another German immigrant,RudolfEickemeyer, who owned an electricalmanufacturingplant in Yonkers,NY. With the encouragement of Eickemeyer, Steinmetz carried out his classic researches on magnetic hysteresis at the factory during 1890-1892. When Eickemeyer sold out to General Electric early in 1893, Steinmetz became a member of the G.E. Calculating Department and remainedan employee of G.E. for the rest of his life. He played a major role in the introduction of complex quantities into ac analysis during the 1890s. His seminal paper on this subject, entitle Complex Quantities and their Use in Electrical Engineering, was presented at the International Electrical Congress held in Chicago in 1893. He was among those who founded the G.E. Research Laboratory in 1900 he and later founded a n d headed an in-house Consulting Engineering Department. He received 195 US. patentsand wrotenumeroustextbooks in electricalengineering. He served as president of the AlEE in 1901-1902 and served on the Board of Education in Schenectady in 1912. Steinmetz was inducted into theNationalInventorsHallof Fame in 1977andwas honored by a U.S. Postage stamp issued in September 1983. For futher information see the Dictionary of Scientific Biography,

James E. Brittain is with the School of SocialSciences,Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, CA 30332, USA.

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P R O C E E D I N G S OF T H E IEEE, VOL. 72, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 1984

vol. 13, pp. 24-25; Encyclopedia of American Biography, 1974, pp. 1035-1036; P. L. Alger and C. D. Wagoner, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, IEEE SPECTRUM, pp. 82-95, Apr. 1%5; Steinmetz the Philosopher, compiled by Philip L. Algerand Ernest Caldecott(Schenectady, NY, 1%5); Ronald R. Kline,Professionalismandthe of Electrical Engineers, IEEE TRANS. CorporateEngineer:Charles P. Steinmetz and the American Institute EDUCATION, vol. E-23, pp. 144-150, Aug. 1980; Ronald R. Kline Charles P. Steinmetz and the Development of Engineering Science, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1983; James E. Brittain, C.P. Steinmetz and E. P. W. Alexanderson: Creative Engineering in a Corporate Setting, Proc. /E, vol. 6 4 , pp. 1413-1 41 7, 1976.

ON THE LAW OF HYSTERESIS.

BY CHAS. PROTEUS STEINMETZ.
In the number 137,of December 17th, 1890,-of theElectrical Engineer I published a short article under the title Note on the Lawof Hysteresis, where I showed that in a setof determinations of the loss of energydue to hysteresisby reversals of magnetism, for different magnetizations, made by Ewing, this loss of energy due to hysteresis can fairly well be expressed by the equation: H =VB.~, where H istheenergy consumedbyhysteresisduringone magnetic cycle, in ergs per cubic centimetre,B the magnetization in lines of magnetic force per square e t ee and q() cn t , mr i a numerical coefficient, this case = .002. in Considering that even the simple law of magnetism-that is, the dependence of the magnetization B upon the magnet@ motive force F (for instance, in ampere turns per centimetre length of themagneticcircuit) has until now defied all attempts of mathematicalformulation, it appeared astrange feature that the apparently much more intricate phenomenon of hysteresis, or rather of theconsumption of energy by hysteresis,shouldyieldtoanalyticalformulation in such a simple way, to be directly proportional to the 1.6th power of the magnetization. At the same the coincidence Ewings time of tests with the curve of the 1.6th power was near enough to be considered as something more than a mere incident, but at least as a clue to a law of hysteresis, the moreas this law held not only for low and medium magnetization, even for very but high saturation, withoutshowing any kink at that point where the magnetic characteristicgoes over the bend or knee and thereby entirely changes its shape, nor any marked tendency of deviation of the extremest observed values from the calculated m e .
Reprinted fromthe American lnstitute of Elecfrical Engineers Transactions, vol. 9, pp. 344,1892. Copyright 1892 by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.
any quantity has a nght to be d magnetic resistance, it is this e d coefficient 7 ; for 7 i the c&cient s of conversion of magnetic energy into heat, while as electric resistance we define the cwfficent o conversion o f f electric energv into heat. The term generaIiy denoted magnetic resistance-that i, the inverse s value of magnetic conductivity, docs not deserve this name at al but i l, s &re properly caned reluctance.

WLE I.
F
1.50 1.95 2.56 3.01 3.76 4.% 6.62 7.04 26.5 75.2

H:
CalC

H - H:=
calc

3,830 5,950 7,180 8,790 10,590 11,480 11.W 13,700

15,560

1160 2190 2940 3990

5560

6160 6590 8690 10,040

375 1082 2190 2956 4080 5510 6260 6690 8310 10,190

+ 35
-90

obs

s:
+ 8.5
...
-2 3

+ 58

- 16

...

+ 5.0
.5 .9 -1.7 - 1.5 + 4.4 -1.5

+so

- 100 - 100

+ 380
-150

iT

Av: i98

f. 26

If

In Fig. 1 and Table I, I give from the article referred to, the calculatedcurve of hystereticloss, as adrawnline,with Ewings tests marked as crosses, and in dotted line the curve tothedifferent of magnetomotiveforce F, c o r r v n magnetizations, as a s s a . bcs e i In the table, I: F = the M. M. F., in absolute units, B = the magnetization,in lines of magnetic forceper square centimetre,
H
ObS

the observed values, and

STEINMETZ: ON THE LAW O HYSTERESIS F

197