George Westinghouse

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George Westinghouse

George Westinghouse (born October 6, 1846 in Central Bridge , New York , † March 12, 1914 in New York ) was an American inventor , engineer and industrialist .

With his invention of the air brake , rail traffic became safer; Furthermore, he helped electrical energy transmission to achieve a worldwide economic breakthrough through the use of alternating voltage and was at times the direct opponent of Thomas Alva Edison , who favored direct voltage for electrical energy transmission . Westinghouse acquired patents from numerous other inventors, such as Nikola Tesla, and marketed them together with his own ideas. He was until his death in 360 patents, established 60 factories, including the later Westinghouse Electric , and employed at peak times, about 50,000 workers . This made him one of the largest employers of his time.

Life

Early years

George Westinghouse was born on October 6, 1846 in Central Bridge, Schoharie County (west of Albany ) in New York . His ancestors came from Westphalia in Germany , who emigrated to England and later to the United States of America . His father moved from Vermont to Ohio in the early 19th century and then settled in Central Bridge, New York. George was the eighth of ten children of George Westinghouse Sr. and Emmeline Vedder. His father moved to Schenectady , New York, where he built a factory for agricultural machinery and small steam engines in 1856 , where George gained his first professional experience. After the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, 15-year-old George fought with two of his brothers on the side of the Northern States in the Civil War . One of his brothers was killed in action. In 1864 he switched from cavalry to the navy , where he became a marine engineer. After the war in 1865, George returned to Schenectady and attended Union College, which he left after three months. He worked in his father's factory and received his first patent for a "rotating steam engine".

On August 8, 1867, he married Marguerite Erskine, with whom he had a son, George III. would have. They moved to Pittsburgh . His first great invention was a device that put derailed wagons back on the rails ( car replacer and the reversible railroad frog ).

Westinghouse air brake

After observing a train collision , he developed the compressed air brake , which the train driver himself could operate for all of the train's wagons . He refined and standardized this system for use by various railway companies . In 1893, the US Railroad Safety Appliance Act made air brakes mandatory for all trains in the United States. They are still standard today in trains , heavy trucks and buses . In Pittsburgh ( Pennsylvania ) in 1869, he founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company ( WABCO ). His air brake made him famous and rich.

He also developed automatic signaling and switching devices that use electrical energy and compressed air , as well as improved car couplings . It was marketed by the Union Switch and Signal Company, which was founded for this purpose .

Petroleum became more and more important for industrial purposes. Oil drilling released natural gas (methane) that was not used. Westinghouse improved the oil drilling equipment to use the natural gas and the piping technology necessary to distribute the gas. Among other things, he invented a pressure reducing valve that brought gas from high pressure at the bore and during distribution to low pressure at the consumer.

The further development of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1877 led Westinghouse to a new field. Initially, all calls were routed to central, manually operated flap cabinets , which led to excessive wiring. In 1879 Westinghouse introduced automatic sub-distributors, which significantly reduced the number of connections.

Middle years

Westinghouse's interest in gas distribution and the start of telephone switching led him to power distribution using electrical energy . Thomas Alva Edison's first power grids at that time used a low DC voltage of 110 V and their spatial extension was limited to a few 100 m to a few kilometers. At the same time, there was initial work on electrical power distribution using alternating voltage , especially in Europe . AC voltage can technically simple transformers are stepped up to the higher voltage transmission losses to keep small. For consumption, the alternating voltage in the vicinity of the consumer was again reduced to low values ​​by a transformer. A conversion from direct voltage to a higher direct voltage was not technologically possible at that time.

The first transformers - the term came about later and these devices were called secondary generators at the time - were developed by Lucien Gaulard in France and John Dixon Gibbs in England and presented in London in 1881 and aroused the interest of Westinghouse. In 1885 he imported a number of these early transformers, these had an open magnetic circuit and, as a result, a high magnetic leakage flux . For the first AC power grid in Pittsburgh , he purchased a Siemens AC voltage generator from Werner von Siemens . Together with William Stanley , the transformer concept was improved.

In 1886, Westinghouse installed a multi-stage AC power grid in Great Barrington , Massachusetts . The network was fed by an electric generator powered by water power with 500  V AC voltage. The generator voltage was stepped up to 3 kV for distribution, distributed via overhead lines and stepped down to 100 V in the vicinity of the individual electrical lighting fixtures. In the same year he founded the Westinghouse Electric Company , which was renamed Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company in 1889 and which became Westinghouse Electric Corporation .

30 additional lighting systems based on AC voltage networks were set up in 1889. For the bigger economic breakthrough, however, two essential components were missing: an efficient AC motor for driving machine tools, for example, and a suitable measuring device that could supply the consumption of electrical power and data for billing. Both components were available on Edison DC networks at the time.

At the time, other inventors such as Nikola Tesla were also working on AC voltage technology. Westinghouse came into contact with Tesla and in 1888 acquired the rights to the so-called polyphase patents . One of the most important patents from it, US Pat. No. 381,968, describes the first two-phase synchronous machine , which is one of the three-phase machines. Tesla hadn't built a working motor at the time, but Westinghouse hired him as a consultant for a year to make the two-phase AC motor a reality. The work led to today's US transmission system: three-phase alternating current at 60  Hz . The mains frequency of 60 Hz was high enough to keep the light flickering low, but high enough to be able to supply powerful electric motors.

Westinghouse's support for AC voltage transmission led to a bitter confrontation with Edison and his DC system. This economic struggle came to be known as the river war . Edison claimed that high AC voltages are necessarily dangerous. Westinghouse, on the other hand, claimed that the dangers were manageable and the benefits outweighed. Edison tried to limit the transmission voltage to 800 V through legislation in several US states , but failed. Edison failed technically to discredit AC technology, the benefits of which far outweighed the potential dangers. Even General Electric , founded in Schenectady in 1892 with the support of Edison, decided to manufacture products for AC voltage.

Late years

In a major coup in 1893, the Westinghouse Company was able to secure the contract to build an AC voltage network to supply the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago . The sea of ​​lights impressed the visitors and brought the company and the AC technology a widespread positive awareness. Westinghouse, in competition with Edison General Electric , also won a contract with the Cataract Construction Company to build the first major grid of AC generators that generated power at the Edward Dean Adams Power Plant near Niagara Falls and in Buffalo , New York in 40 km away. The plant was put into operation in 1896.

The AC grids expanded and Westinghouse turned its attention to the production of electrical energy. The only sources available were water turbines and steam engines . Westinghouse found the piston steam engines too inefficient and wanted to develop some kind of rotating machine. One of his first inventions was a rotating steam engine, but it had proven impractical. The English engineer Charles Parsons had started to experiment with smaller steam turbines (10 HP ≈ 7.5 kW). Westinghouse acquired the rights to the Parsons turbine in 1885, improved the technology and expanded the power range. Skeptics doubted that the steam turbine each have a reliable source of energy, but would put 1889 Westinghouse a machine with 300  kilowatts of power before which replaced the steam engines in its air brakes factory.

The following year he installed a machine with 1.5 MW and 1200 revolutions per minute for the Hartford Electric Light Company . Westinghouse saw an application of its steam turbines in the propulsion of large ships. Such large turbines were most efficient at about 3000 revolutions per minute, while an efficient ship propeller operated at 100 revolutions per minute. This meant the use of reduction gears , but they were complicated. Even a small imbalance could tear the machine to pieces. Westinghouse and its engineers managed to get the imbalance problems under control. Turbines for large steamers could now be built.

Westinghouse's company became one of General Electric's main competitors, but under an agreement dating from 1896, the companies were allowed to use their patents reciprocally.

The first electric locomotive was introduced on the East Pittsburgh Railway in 1905. Soon after, the Westinghouse Company began electrifying the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad with single-phase alternating current.

Westinghouse remained productive and inventive all of his life. He had a practical, experimental streak. When he worked with heat pumps that provided heat and cold, he believed in being able to build a machine that ran independently. Westinghouse wanted to build a perpetual motion machine, and the British physicist Lord Kelvin , one of Westinghouse's correspondents, told him that it would violate thermodynamic laws . Westinghouse replied that it might be true, but it made no difference. If he couldn't build a perpetual motion machine, he would at least have a heat pump system that he could patent and sell.

With the introduction of the automobile around the turn of the century, Westinghouse came back to earlier inventions. He brought out a pneumatic shock absorber that made the vehicles of the time more comfortable. At the turn of the century, his firms employed around 50,000 workers. Nine were in the United States, one in Canada, and five in Europe . Westinghouse remained a leader in American industry until 1907, when he lost control of the companies he founded due to the financial crisis. In 1911 he withdrew from the Westinghouse Company. In the same year he was awarded the Edison Medal for his life's work . In 1913 he was awarded the Grashof Memorial Medal by the Association of German Engineers .

Westinghouse showed signs of cardiac insufficiency and was given rest by his doctors in 1913. His health deteriorated and his illness forced him into a wheelchair.

Death and aftermath

George Westinghouse died on March 12, 1914 in New York City at the age of 67. A Civil War veteran, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery . His wife, who died three months after him, is buried next to him. In 1930 a memorial in honor of Westinghouse was erected in Schenley Park in Pittsburgh , donated by his employees.

Many of the companies founded by George Westinghouse still exist in one form or another in 2015. The Westinghouse Company's slogan was: You can be sure if it's a Westinghouse . They made electrical lighting , refrigerators , washing machines and other electrical appliances. Westinghouse was also a pioneer in broadcasting because he recognized that radio was an application of electricity. The company built its Group W chain of radio and television stations , and broadcasting became a serious business. After the acquisition of CBS in 1995, the company changed its direction and the name Westinghouse and its product line were discontinued. The compressed air brake is now being developed and built by WABCO (Westinghouse Air Brake Company), among others .

He is portrayed by Michael Shannon in the feature film Edison - A Life Full of Light (2017) .

literature

Web links

Commons : George Westinghouse  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Steam Hammer, Westinghouse Works, 1904 . May 1904. Retrieved July 28, 2013. 21 short films recorded at various Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company factories in April – May 1904 and shown shown in the Westinghouse Auditorium at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
  2. ↑ Patent US381968 : Mode and plan of operating electric motors by progressive shifting; Field magnet; Armature; Electrical conversion; Economical; Transmission of energy; Simple construction; Easier construction; Rotating magnetic field principles. Patent US381969 : Novel shape and operating mode; Coils forming independent energizing circuits; Connected to an alternating current generator; Synchronous motor. Patent US381970 : Current from a single source of supply in the main or Transmitting circuit induce by induction apparatus. Patent US382279 : rotation is produced and maintained by direct attraction; Utilizes shifting poles; Induction magnetic motor. Patent US382280 : New method or mode of transmission; Dynamo motor conversion with two independent circuits for long distance transmission; Alternating current transmission. Patent US382281 : Improvements in electromagnetic motors and Their fashion or methods of Their operations. Patent US382282 : Method of Converting and Distributing Electric Currents. ‌
personal data
SURNAME Westinghouse, George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American inventor, engineer and industrialist
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Central Bridge, New York (State)
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 1914
Place of death New York City