IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR GENERATING AND UTILIZING ELECTRICITY
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Cornelius Edward Kelway at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 20th June 18$2.
CORNELIUS EDWARD KELWAY, of New Bridge Street, in the City of London.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR GENERATING AND UTILIZING
ELECTRICITY"
This Invention relates to machinery or apparatus used for the purpose of
generating a current or currents of Electricity, in which one or more armatures of
soft iron are made to revolve in close proximity to fixed permanent magnets or
electro-magnets. It has for its object novel methods of arranging and actuating
such machinery or apparatus so that a current or currents of Electricity of the
desired magnitude may be produced by a much slower speed of revolution of the
apparatus than is usual in such apparatus as heretofore ordinarily constructed and
used.
For the purpose of putting my Invention in operation I arrange a sufficient
number of soft iron armatures surrounded with insulated wire in the proper
position upon a shaft or axle which can be made to revolve at the desired speed
by steam or other convenient power.
Upon a second shaft or axis concentric with that just described I arrange and
fix a series of permanent steel magnets or of soft iron bars which can be converted
into electro-magnets by the passage of Electricity through insulated wires
surrounding them in the usual way, and I connect the second shaft or axis
arranged as described to the same power which drives the first shaft, or to a
separate power, in such manner that the second shaft can be made to revolve at
the same time as the first but in the opposite direction, and at the same or a
different speed.
The two shafts may be mounted and arranged so as to revolve in separate
bearings in a line with each other, or preferably one shaft is made hollow so that
the other, which may also be hollow, revolves within it. The method of con-
struction and arrangement as described by which the arinature or armatures are
made to revolve in one direction, whilst the permanent magnets or electro-magnets
which constitute the field magnets revolve in the opposite direction, may be applied
to Electrical generators of any of the well known kinds, suitable collectors or

page_text: commutators being arranged to collect and distribute in the proper direction, if
necessary, not only the electricity passing through the insulated wire round the
armature or armatures but also that which passes through the insulated wire
round the field magnets where the latter are formed of electro-magnets.
By the method of construction and operation described, economy in the power
necessary to drive the machinery or apparatus is obtained, since the same result is
produced from a slower speed of revolution, with a consequent diminution of
friction; and great regularity and uniformity in the current of Electricity are
attained, as any irregularity of speed of the motive power is less perceptible on
account of the relative speed of revolution of the apparatus being less than where
the apparatus is driven in the ordinary way, and fixed field magnets are employed.