Industrial electrical variable speed drives: 40 years of innovation

摘要

In 1971, industrial drives were very different to those we use today. Professor Bill Drury of Control Techniques takes a look back at the changing technology, the developments, and the marketplace now and in the future. Industrial drives in 1971 were a very different animal to those we are familiar with today. Many of the leading manufacturers of the time no longer dominate the market, and the applications for use have expanded tremendously. It was in 1971 that W.T Grant wrote a definitive survey 'Electrical Variable Speed Drives' in Engineers' Digest, and the bulk of the paper centred on DC drives with novel thyristor based converter topologies explained in some detail. While AC motor control did feature, most of this was focused on rotating variable frequency sources, multi-motor configurations and the AC commutator motor, rather that the ubiquitous inverter that we all take for granted today.