Brown, Charles Eugene Lancelot

SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Public utilities, Railways and locomotives

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b. 17 June 1863 Winterthur, Switzerland

d. 2 May 1924 Montagnola, Italy

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English engineer who developed polyphase electrical generation and transmission plant.

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After attending the Technical College in Winterthur, Brown served with Emile Burgin in Basle before entering the Oerlikon engineering works near Zurich. Two years later he became Director of the electrical department of Oerlikon and from that time was involved in the development of electrical equipment for the generation and distribution of power. The Lauffen-Frankfurt 110-mile (177 km) transmission line of 1891 demonstrated the commercial feasibility of transmitting electrical power over great distances with three-phase alternating current. For this he designed a generator and early examples of oil-cooled transformers, and the scheme gave an impetus to the development of electric-power transmission throughout Europe. In 1891, in association with Walter Boveri, Brown founded the works of Brown Boveri \& Co. at Baden, Switzerland, and until his retirement in 1911 he devoted his energies to the design of polyphase alternating-current machinery. Important installations included the Frankfurt electricity works (1894), the Paderno-Milan transmission line, and the Lugano tramway of 1894, the first system in Europe to use three-phase traction motors. This tramway was followed by many other polyphase and mountain railways. The acquisition by Brown Boveri \& Co. in 1900 of the manufacturing rights of the Parsons steam turbine directed Brown's attention to problems associated with high-speed machines. Recognizing the high centrifugal stress involved, he began to employ solid cylindrical generator rotors with slots for the excitation winding, a method that has come to be universally adopted in large alternators.

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Bibliography

3 December 1901, British patent no. 24,632 (slotted rotor for alternators).

Further Reading

Obituary, 1924, The Engineer 137:543.

Ake T.Vrenthem, 1980, Jonas Wenstrom and the Three Phase System, Stockholm, pp. 26–8 (obituary).

75 Years of Brown Boveri, 1966, Baden, Switzerland (for a company history).

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