Kálmán Kandó
Kálmán Kandó from Egerfarmos and Sztregova (born July 10, 1869 in Pest , † January 13, 1931 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian engineer , inventor and railway pioneer .
Live and act
Kandó attended the Fasori Evangélikus Gimnázium and studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Budapest from 1888 to 1892 . He then completed a service as a one-year volunteer with the Austro-Hungarian Navy . He then worked at the Compagnie de Fives Lille in Paris, where he devoted himself to the novel multi-phase alternating current technology.
He gained a good reputation there, so that the director of Ganz & Co. in Budapest, András Mechwart , was able to persuade him to join his company in 1894, where he also met Károly Zipernowsky , Ottó Titusz Bláthy and Miksa Déri . Shortly afterwards he became head of the construction department, where he was particularly concerned with the use of three-phase current for railway systems. For this purpose he set up an 800 meter long test track on the company premises. The first result was the construction of a three-phase tram in Évian-les-Bains , which was used to transport hotel guests. After a study trip through the USA in 1897 , rail electrification was his main activity. When the Italian railway company Rete Adriatica wanted to electrify its route along Lake Como in the same year , only Ganz was ready to carry out this work. Kandó developed a special three-phase system for this, almost everything about which was new. Operations began on September 4, 1902. Also in 1902 a similar line was put into operation in the munitions factory in Wöllersdorf . This system then spread throughout Northern Italy and was in operation until 1976.
Since rail electrification and electric locomotive construction were discontinued in Hungary under pressure from major banks, Kandó moved to Vado Ligure in 1907 , where he designed the FS E.550 freight locomotive for the Giovi line . Up to 1930, 369 of its and its successors had been built. After his wife had died in 1913, he sent his children back to Hungary after the outbreak of World War I and then soon returned with a detour via Switzerland . He was drafted into military service and was a consultant for coal supply for the railways at the War Ministry in Vienna . The looming coal crisis led to a study on the supply of the rail network with the 50 Hz alternating current system. At Ganz's instigation, he was released from military service in 1917 and became general director of the entire company. Nonetheless, he continued his work as a locomotive designer and designed locomotives for the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans and the Italian locomotive factory Romeo.
The Kandó rod drive was introduced by him and used for the first time in the three-phase electric locomotives of the FS , E 552 series . In 1922, Kandó resigned from his position as general manager due to the heavy use of construction work and was hired as a consultant by the American company Westinghouse , among others . The university also awarded him an honorary doctorate that year . In 1923, under the direction of Kandó, a 15 km long route starting from Budapest West Railway Station was electrified with single-phase alternating current. The test locomotive, which was based on the E 552 but operated with single-phase alternating current - later the V50 series - was such a success during test drives in 1928 that it was decided to electrify it between Budapest and Hegyeshalom according to the 16 kV / 50 Hz system. It showed that Kandó's considerations were correct, but that there were still a number of problems to be solved. Disadvantages of the V 50 were the complicated structure of the mechanical part and also that the locomotive could only be operated with a few speed steps for fixed continuous speeds. However, since the difference in performance to the Austrian steam locomotives was clear, a freight train locomotive, the BBÖ 1180 .001 and an express train locomotive, the BBÖ 1470 .001 were ordered at the request of the director of the Floridsdorf locomotive factory , Arnold Demmer . The test drives were not successful here, however, so that the machines were returned to the suppliers in the same year. The main reason was that the phase converter system was hardly suitable for the Austrian 15 kV / 16⅔ & Hz system.
The later expansion of the electrical three-phase drive to include a built-in rotating phase converter , which allowed it to be fed from the single-phase network, is often attributed to the "Kandó system". The locomotives of the V40 series were also known as Kandó . The last electric locomotive built according to the Kandó type was the MÁV V55 series , which, however, already has a single axle drive .
Kálmán Kandó died of a heart attack in 1931 .
Appreciation
The Hungarian Post dedicated a stamp to him in 1948 and 1968.
See also
Web links
- Biography of Kalman Kando on incredible-people.com (engl.)
- Kálmán Kandó on omikk.bme.hu (Engl.)
literature
- T. Varfalvi: 50 years of electric train operation Budapest - Hegyeshalom, a work by Kálmán Kandós , In: Eisenbahn 1983/10, Bohmann Verlag, pp. 181–188, ISSN 0013-2756
Individual evidence
- ^ Photo of the FS E552 ( Memento from December 20, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Photo of a model of the FS E.552
- ↑ Kálmán Kandó ( Memento of the original from February 26, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on Railway in Hungary accessed on September 5, 2010
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kandó, Kálmán |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Egerfarmos and Sztregova, Kálmán Kandó from |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Hungarian engineer and locomotive designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 10, 1869 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Plague (city) |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 13, 1931 |
| Place of death | Budapest |