Henri Tudor

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Henri Tudor in 1899

Henri Owen Tudor (born September 30, 1859 at the Diesburgerhof near Ferschweiler ; † May 31, 1928 in Rosport ) was a Luxembourg engineer and inventor of the first usable lead-acid battery .

Life

Henri Tudor was the son of the Englishman John Thomas Tudor and the Luxembourger Marie Loser. He graduated from high school in Chimay, Belgium, and studied engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique in Brussels from 1879 to 1883 . In 1885 he trained "at an electrical institute in Paris [...] in the specialty". There he attended courses from Marcel Depréz . During his student days, Henri Tudor became interested in electrical engineering , especially the storage of electrical energy. Between 1879 and 1882, when he was still a student, he set up a direct current system in his parents' house, the Irminenhof in Rosport . He connected a dynamo of the Gramme type to the water wheel of the Bannmühle located on the property and fed Edison's light bulbs with the electricity obtained in this way . Tudor noticed that the current supplied by the generator was irregular and that the machine was idling when it was idle. He toyed with the idea of using lead-acid batteries to smooth the tension and store unused energy.

The functional principle of the lead accumulator was discovered in 1854 by Wilhelm Josef Sinsteden . The accumulator as an energy storage device was invented in 1859 by the physicist Gaston Planté and improved in 1880 by the chemist Camille Faure . However, it caused a lot of headache in use: short circuits were not uncommon and the plates gradually disintegrated during operation. Thomas Edison therefore called the lead-acid battery a "hoax" and a commercial failure.

Henri Tudor was looking for a solution to this problem, he himself made a mold for plates with a large surface and used it to manufacture a lead accumulator of his own design. He could count on the support of his older brother Hubert and his cousin Nikolaus Schalkenbach from Trier . With his system, consisting of a dynamo and an accumulator, he managed a steady and uninterrupted power supply. The Tudor's castle was then one of the first private residences in Europe to have electric light available around the clock.

For excursions in the vicinity of his home town, Henri Tudor used an electric Break type automobile, which had been built in 1902 by the J. Lefert workshop in Ghent and which was equipped with Tudor batteries.

Tudor's system accumulators are characterized by their reliability and long service life. A battery manufactured by Henri Tudor went into operation in Rosport by October 1882 at the latest and was in use without interruption until December 22, 1887. The Tudor Museum in Rosport exhibits accumulator plates that date from 1882 and have been in regular use for 16 years.

Henri Tudor married Marie-Madeleine Pescatore in 1891. From this marriage there were two daughters and one son. From 1892 the young family lived in the villa that Henri Tudor had built in Rosport, popularly known as "the new castle".

Henri Tudor suffered from acute lead poisoning . From 1914 the symptoms became so severe that he could hardly leave his house. He died in 1928 of the consequences of this illness.

Henri Tudor's patents

Patent from 1886

Functioning of the positive electrode of the Tudor accumulator according to the patent of 1886: (a) a groove provided with a fine Planté layer and filled with lead oxide paste (b) during operation the Planté layer becomes stronger; the paste adhering to the Planté layer expands and contracts in the rhythm of the charge and discharge cycles; Any fragments accumulating in the process collect in the free space provided for this in the lowest part of the cell.

On July 17, 1886, Henri Tudor applied for patent no. 711 in Luxembourg with the following wording: "New improvements to the electrodes of electrical accumulators". In the same year he applied for similar patents in Belgium and France (Emile Hoffmann compiled a list of Henri Tudor's patents).

The improvements proposed by Henri Tudor were as follows: the plates or electrodes are thick enough to be rigid; they are provided with beveled, fine ribs on both sides in order to offer the largest possible surface; they are formed using the Gaston Planté method by charging and discharging cycles, but only for a short time. The grooves of the electrodes are then filled (tartinated) with a paste of lead oxide ( red lead ) using the method of Camille Faure . The electrodes are then subjected to a weak current until the paste of the positive electrodes is completely converted into lead peroxide and that of the negative electrodes is converted into porous lead. Thanks to the pre-applied Planté layer, good adhesion is guaranteed, and thanks to the beveling of the grooves, expansion and contraction of the active paste applied during the loading and unloading cycles is possible without the panels throwing themselves. At the bottom of the vessel of the accumulator cell there is free space for crumbling active paste. During operation, the existing Planté layer is strengthened by the loading and unloading processes: The final formation of the panels takes place at the consumer. The Tudor electrode combines the advantages of the Planté and Faure methods while avoiding their respective disadvantages. The Tudor electrode stood out in the competition through its great reliability.

Patent from 1896

Henri Tudor looked for ways of avoiding the tartination of the plates, because this process was cumbersome and harmful to health. The aim was to use an accelerated electrochemical process to obtain an effective active layer. On May 18, 1896, Tudor applied for patent no. 10718 in Great Britain for the electrode coated with "sulphate-containing lead oxides". These were actually basic lead oxides with the general chemical formula x PbO • y PbSO 4 • z H 2 O. The invention of 1896 reduced the weight and price of the batteries while increasing their capacity.

Lighting systems

On April 30, 1886, Henri Tudor signed an agreement with the city of Echternach for the supply of electrical street lighting. To this end, he founded the company Gebrüder Tudor & Schalkenbach together with his brother Hubert and his cousin Nikolaus Schalkenbach and set up production plants for accumulators in Rosport.

The power station for supplying public lighting in Echternach was housed in an outbuilding of the former abbey and consisted of a steam boiler, dynamos and a battery of Tudor lead-acid batteries. The plant was put into operation on October 24, 1886. Echternach was one of the first cities in the world to have electric street lighting.

In 1887 Henri Tudor received permission to build a lighting system in the small town of Dolhain in Belgium. In 1889 he founded the Société Anonyme Belge pour l'Éclairage public par l'Électricité and built power plants in Brussels and Ghent . In 1890 he was awarded the contract to build and operate an electrical network in Ninove .

In May 1889 a total of 150 public or private stationary accumulator systems of the Tudor system were in operation in Belgium and Europe. In July 1891 there were more than 1200, which corresponded to more than three million accumulator plates.

From 1896 Tudor's enthusiasm for public lighting systems gradually waned. The village of Rosport, his hometown, received its electric street lighting in 1901. The local direct current networks fed by accumulators were limited in their development and could not withstand the competition of alternating current technology in the long term.

Industrial activities

Rosport plant

The production of the Tudor accumulators began in 1886 in an outbuilding of the Engelsbuerg estate in Rosport. From January 1897, as a result of the dissolution of the Société Anonyme Franco-Belge pour la fabrication de l'accumulateur Tudor, the Rosporter plant supplied both the Luxembourg and the Belgian market. At times it employed more than 30 workers and reached the peak of its production in the years 1899 to 1901 (over 200 tons per year). The business was made very difficult by an unfavorable hillside location and the customs barriers at the time. From 1901 production was relocated from Rosport to Florival near Wavre in Belgium. The Rosporter plant was shut down in 1908.

Creation of an industrial giant in Germany

In 1885, Adolph Müller , commercial representative of the electrotechnical factory Spiecker & Co. in Cologne, visited Henri Tudor in Rosport to find out about his lead accumulator. After a few hours he was convinced that he was looking at something new that could be developed for use on a large scale. Müller decided to wait for a larger system to go into operation in the nearby town of Echternach in order to then market the Tudor'schen System accumulator in Germany.

On July 15, 1888, the Tudor brothers signed a contract with the Tudor'schen Systems Büsche und Müller accumulator factory and gave them the exclusive rights to manufacture and sell the Tudor accumulator in Germany, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. The contract also provided for the transfer of technology and patents. Henri Tudor immediately went to Hagen in Westphalia to set up and supervise the manufacture of the accumulators for the rest of the year.

Two years later, the Tudor'schen Systems Büsche und Müller accumulator factory, which had since been renamed Büsche and Einbeck , formed the Accumulatoren-Fabrik Aktiengesellschaft (AFA) with the major electrotechnical companies Siemens & Halske and AEG , which was founded on October 6, 1890 was entered in the commercial register in Berlin. This grew rapidly and in the same year achieved a turnover of 3,300,000 marks at the Hagen location. Henri Tudor took on the role of a scientific advisor there. He led u. a. the following improvements: the pearl-string plate (smeared and scraped-out negative plate) and the unit plate (1891); the development of casting molds for finer grooves (1895–1896); the elimination of the loss of capacity in negative plates (1895–1896). The AFA took a leading position in the German market for accumulators and was listed on the Berlin stock exchange in 1894. It was renamed Varta AG in 1962 .

Industrial activities in Western Europe

Henri Tudor granted a license to manufacture his accumulator to the company Piaux, Georgin, Bayeux & C ° , which started production in 1888 in its Jonchery-sur-Vesle plant. On April 10, 1889, Tudor ceded all manufacturing and sales rights for Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Spain to the Société Anonyme Belge pour l'Éclairage par l'Électricité . Their production facility in Faches-Thumesnil on the outskirts of the city of Lille opened its doors in September 1891, and production in Jonchery was therefore omitted.

To supply the British market, the Luxembourgish Antoine Bonaventure Pescatore, brother-in-law of Henri Tudor, founded a plant in Dukinfield near Manchester in January 1896 .

While the Tudor accumulator had a resounding success on the European markets, the main plant in Rosport had to struggle with difficulties. Luxembourg's membership of the German Customs Union turned out to be a disadvantage in business: import duties were incurred on lead as a raw material and the sale of finished products in Western Europe was made more difficult by export duties. Tudor therefore founded a plant at the Florival site near Wavre in Belgium, which was inaugurated on July 25, 1901. Rosport's production was immediately relocated there.

Adolph Müller remained one of Tudor's best personal friends. However, through so-called “friendship agreements”, which he concluded with competitors, he gained additional market shares, much to the disadvantage of Tudor. This was the case in the Netherlands, and a little later in England, where it penetrated into the heart of the Dukinfield company. The AFA, however, never succeeded in incorporating the work of Florival, Tudor's last bastion.

The First World War was a major turning point in the development of Tudor companies. The Dukinfield plant was sequestered by the British authorities in 1917.

After the war, on August 1, 1919, the board of directors of the Société Anonyme "Accumulateurs Tudor" met in Rosport and determined that the company was henceforth authorized to manufacture accumulators in all countries or to export them worldwide without restrictions and reservations.

Mobile energy

On August 6, 1884, the Tudor brothers coupled a threshing machine to an electric motor in a barn on their father's estate. One month later this electric threshing machine could occasionally be admired at the agricultural exhibition in Diekirch. However, the question of how to transport electricity to the most remote rural locations arose.

An energy car in front of the Tudor plant in Rosport

Henri Tudor and his friend Maurice Braun presented their energy car at the Liège exhibition in 1905 . It was a novel solution that was supposed to replace the conventional mobile steam engine ( locomobile ), a compact and well-studied unit, consisting of an internal combustion engine, a generator, an accumulator battery and the necessary control instruments. In it were "in the greatest possible simplification all the components of a power plant of that time". It was not a motor vehicle - a team of horses was required to move it. It should not be confused with the hybrid electric vehicle marketed by the Pieper Établissements in Liège in 1897 and fitted with Tudor batteries manufactured at the Dukinfield plant.

The Energy-Car was initially assembled in Rosport, but this activity was moved to the Braun workshops in Brussels over time. The commercial success of the energy car was limited: the cost price was high and operation was anything but easy. When the rural power grids were created, the electric motor found its way into rural areas - without the help of the energy car.

legacy

Engineer Marcel Wuillot, managing director of the Société Anonyme “Accumulateurs Tudor” , Brussels, paid tribute to the brothers Hubert and Henri Tudor for developing the theoretical research of Planté into an industrial solution.

In 1987, the Center de recherche public Henri-Tudor was named after Henri Tudor, a public research center in Luxembourg , which at the end of 2014 became part of the Luxembourg Institute for Science and Technology (LIST).

In 2013, an asteroid discovered in 2005 was named after Henri Tudor: (260886) Henritudor .

The Tudor Museum in Rosport

On December 13, 2006, the Rosport aldermen, consisting of Romain Osweiler, Henri Zeimetz and Patrick Hierthes, published the specifications for a “modern and lively museum space on energy and the storage of energy”. The aim was to explain Henri Tudor's inventions and their scope and at the same time to introduce the inventor to his family and to the community of Rosport. The offer from Wieland Schmid from the Atelier für Gestaltung in Mannheim was withheld because of its educational and artistic value. Professor Wolfgang Schmid from the University of Trier and the engineers Ernest Reiter and Henri Werner were called in as consultants. The architect Marcel Niederweis converted the north wing of the Tudor Castle, which was divided into many smaller rooms, into a single, manageable and light-flooded room. The museum was inaugurated on May 23, 2009 in the presence of many personalities from home and abroad.

Web links

literature

  • Clemens, Oskar, 50 years of Accumulatoren-Fabrik Aktiengesellschaft 1888–1938 , Berlin 1938
  • Euler, Karl Joachim: From Knights to Tudor. To the invention of the lead accumulator. In: History of Technology, Vol. 48, No. 1, Association of German Engineers, Düsseldorf 1981
  • Hoffmann, Emile (1959): Henri Owen Tudor, ingénieur, 1858–1928. Commémoration du centième anniversaire de sa naissance . Archives de l'Institut grand-ducal de Luxembourg, Section des Sciences naturelles, physiques et mathématiques, NS 26: 59–80.
  • Jumau, L., 1928, Henri Tudor. Ingénieur, Fondateur et Administrateur de l'ancienne Société de l'Accumulateur Tudor . Revue Générale de l'Electricité vol. 24, 132
  • Jumau, L., 1929, Piles et accumulateurs électriques . Armand Colin Collection
  • Linck, Josef, Nikolaus Josef Schalkenbach, an inventor from Trier: Trierisches Jahrbuch, 6th year, Trier 1955
  • Massard, Jos.A., 1886–1996 , One Hundred Years of Electric Light in Echternach. A contribution to the history of public and private lighting in the 19th and early 20th centuries in Luxembourg with a view of the German border area : Annuaire de la Ville d'Echternach 1997, 101–144
  • Montpellier, JA, L'Energy-Car : L'Electricien 889 (1908), 35-38
  • Müller, Adolph, 25 years of the Accumulatoren-Fabrik Aktiengesellschaft 1888–1913 , Berlin 1913, 376 pp
  • Schallenberg, Richard H., Bottled Energy. Electrical Engineering and the Evolution of Chemical Energy Storage. American Philosophical Society Memoires Vol. 148, Philadelphia 1982
  • Schmid, Wolfgang, The Tudor Brothers in Rosport. Inventors, entrepreneurs, hunters and hikers. Eifel yearbook 2009, 60–64
  • Schmid, Wolfgang / Schmid, Wieland, Henri Tudor - Origin and Family, Accumulator - Invention and Distribution, Electricity, then and now 1859–1928 [catalog, published occasionally for the opening of the Tudor Museum in Rosport], Rosport 2009
  • Steinmetz, Aloyse (1981): The Tudors in Rosport. Documentation about the life and merits of the Tudor brothers for their hometown of Rosport. Edited by teacher Al. Steinmetz, occasionally on the 100th anniversary of the first lead accumulator, which was built by Henri Owen Tudor and worked in the old mill of the former Irminenhof <1881>. Luxembourg, Rapid Press, 68, (4) p.
  • Steinmetz, Aloyse (1995): Henri Owen Tudor constructed a lead-acid battery in Rosport, which caused a worldwide sensation. Gester to Hätt, 8 (16): 3–11.
  • Steinmetz, Aloyse (1996): Henri Owen Tudor, pioneer in the field of electricity. Home calendar 1997 Bitburg-Prüm district: 26–31.
  • Steinmetz, Aloyse (1998): Henri Owen Tudor, an important pioneer in our country. Nos Cahiers, 19 (2-3): 401-422.
  • Tudor, Henri / Braun, Maurice, L'Energy-Car et ses groupes Thermo-Electriques: Bulletin de la Société Belge d'Electriciens, 24 (1907), 65-77
  • Henri Werner, Ernest Reiter: Henri Owen Tudor, L'impact d'une idée . 1st edition. Les Amis du Musée Henri Tudor asbl, 2009, ISBN 978-99959-6290-6 .
  • Henri Werner, Ernest Reiter: Henri Owen Tudor. An Idea ... and Where it Led . Ed .: Les Amis du Musée Henri Tudor asbl. Rosport 2012, ISBN 978-99959-6291-3 .
  • Kurt Jäger, Friedrich Heilbronner: Lexicon of electrical engineers . 2nd Edition. VDE-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8007-2903-6 , p. 437–438 ( table of contents [PDF; 125 kB ]).
  • Marcel Wuillot: Monographie sur les accumulateurs électriques comme introduction à son exposition rétrospective de plaques d'accumulateurs, 1860-1922 . Ed .: Société Anonyme "Accumulateurs Tudor". Liège 1922.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henri Werner, Ernest Reiter: Henri Owen Tudor. L'impact d'une idée . Ed .: Les Amis du Musée Henri Tudor asbl. Rosport 2009, ISBN 978-99959-6290-6 , pp. 56.70 .
  2. ↑ The electric lighting in Echternach . In: Luxembourg newspaper . January 4, 1887.
  3. ↑ a b L. Jumau: Henri Tudor: Ingénieur, Fondateur et Administrateur de l'ancienne Société de l'Accumulateur Tudor . In: Revue générale de l'Electricité . July 28, 1928, p. 132 .
  4. ^ Richard H. Schallenberg: Bottled Energy. Electrical Engineering and the Evolution of Chemical Energy Storage . In: Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society . tape 148 . Philadelphia 1982, ISBN 0-87169-148-5 , pp. 67-68 .
  5. ^ Henri Werner, Ernest Reiter: Henri Owen Tudor. L'impact d'une idée . Les Amis du Musée Henri Tudor asbl, Rosport 2009, ISBN 978-99959-6290-6 , p. 56, 70 .
  6. ↑ Emile Hoffmann: Henri Owen Tudor engineer 1859-1928. Commémoration du centième anniversaire de sa naissance . In: Institut Grand-Ducal de Luxembourg, Secion des Sciences naturelles, physiques et mathématiques (ed.): Archives . No. XXVI . Luxembourg 1959, p. 79 .
  7. ↑ Abatracts of Published Specifications . In: The Electrical Review . tape 41 , no. 1040 , October 29, 1897, p. 592 .
  8. ^ Tudor Accumulators . In: The Electrical Review . tape 39 , no. 975 , July 31, 1896, p. 146 .
  9. ^ Henri Werner, Ernest Reiter: Henri Owen Tudor. L'impact d'une idée . Ed .: Les Amis du Musée Henri Tudor asbl. Rosport 2009, ISBN 978-99959-6290-6 , pp. 71-93 .
  10. ^ Société anonyme Franco-Belge pour la fabrication de l'accumulateur "Tudor" (ed.): Notice . Brussels July 1891, p. I .
  11. ^ Henri Werner, Ernest Reiter: Henri Owen Tudor. L'impact d'une idée . Les Amis du Musée Henri Tudor asbl, Rosport 2009, ISBN 978-99959-6290-6 , p. 103-119 .
  12. ^ Adolph Müller: 25 years of the Accumulatoren-Fabrik Actiengesellschaft 1888–1913 . Ed .: AFA. Berlin 1913, p. 1-3 .
  13. ^ Oskar Clemens: 50 Years of Accumulatoren-Fabrik Aktiengesellschaft 1888–1938 . Ed .: AFA. Berlin / Hagen / Vienna 1938, p. 41 .
  14. ^ AFA (Ed.): 50 Years Accumulatoren-Fabrik Aktiengesellschaft 1888–1938 . Berlin / Hagen / Vienna 1938, p. 49 .
  15. ^ Adolph Müller: 25 years of the Accumulatoren-Fabrik Actiengesellschaft 1888–1913 . Ed .: AFA. Berlin 1913, p. 54-84 .
  16. ^ Adolph Müller: 25 years of the Accumulatoren-Fabrik Actiengesellschaft 1888–1913 . Ed .: AFA. Berlin 1913, p. 40-46 .
  17. ^ Henri Werner, Ernest Reiter: Henri Owen Tudor. L'impact d'une idée . Ed .: Les Amis du Musée Henri Tudor. Rosport 2009, ISBN 978-99959-6290-6 , pp. 125-150 .
  18. ^ Henri Werner, Ernest Reiter: Henri Owen Tudor. L'impact d'une idée . Ed .: Les Amis du Musée Henri Tudor. Rosport 2009, ISBN 978-99959-6290-6 , pp. 98-102 .
  19. ↑ Rosport . In: Echternacher Anzeiger . August 7, 1884.
  20. ↑ A visit to Diekirch . In: Obermosel newspaper . October 1, 1884.
  21. ^ JA Montpellier: L'Energy-Car . In: L'Electricien . 1908, p. 35-38 .
  22. ↑ Marcel Wuillot: Monographie sur les accumulateurs électriques comme introduction à son exposition rétrospective de plaques d'accumulateurs, 1860-1922 . Ed .: Socété Anonyme "Accumulateurs Tudor". Liège 1922, p. 10 .
  23. ^ Bienvenue au CRP Henri Tudor . Archived from the original on May 14, 2012.
  24. ^ Gabriel Lippmann + Henri Tudor = LIST . LIST. 1. November 2013.
  25. ^ Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (260001) - (265000) . Minor Planet Center, IAU. 18th November 2016.
  26. ^ Tudor Museum. Retrieved January 11, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Tudor, Henri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tudor, Henri Owen (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Luxembourg engineer and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH at Ferschweiler
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1928
Place of death Rosport