Magnetic amplifier

The magnetic amplifier (colloquially known as a "mag amp") is an electromagnetic device for amplifying electrical signals. The magnetic amplifier was invented early in the 20th century, and was used as an alternative to vacuum tube amplifiers where robustness and high current capacity were required. World War II Germany perfected this type of amplifier, and it was used for instance in the V-2 rocket. The magnetic amplifier was most prominent in power control and low-frequency signal applications from 1947 to about 1957, when the transistor began to supplant it.^[1] The magnetic amplifier has now been largely superseded by the transistor-based amplifier, except in a few safety critical, high reliability or extremely demanding applications. Combinations of transistor and mag-amp techniques are still used.

Strengths

The magnetic amplifier is a static device with no moving parts. It has no wear-out mechanism and has a good tolerance to mechanical shock and vibration. It requires no warm-up time.^[2] Multiple isolated signals may be summed by additional control windings on the magnetic cores. The windings of a magnetic amplifier have a higher tolerance to momentary overloads than comparable solid-state devices. The magnetic amplifier is also used as a transducer in applications such as current measurement and the flux gate compass.

Limitations

The gain available from a single stage is limited and low compared to electronic amplifiers. Frequency response of a high gain amplifier is limited to about one-tenth the excitation frequency, although this is often mitigated by exciting magnetic amplifiers with currents at higher than utility frequency.^[1] Solid-state amplifiers can be more compact and efficient than magnetic amplifiers. The bias and feedback windings are not unilateral, and may couple energy back from the controlled circuit into the control circuit. This complicates the design of multistage amplifiers when compared with electronic devices.^[1]

Principle of operation

A saturable reactor, illustrating the principle of a magnetic amplifier

Visually a mag amp device may resemble a transformer but the operating principle is quite different from a transformer - essentially the mag amp is a saturable reactor. It makes use of magnetic saturation of the core, a non-linear property of a certain class of transformer cores. For controlled saturation characteristics the magnetic amplifier employs core materials that have been designed to have a specific B-H curve shape that is highly rectangular, in contrast to the slowly-tapering B-H curve of softly saturating core materials that are often used in normal transformers.

The typical magnetic amplifier consists of two physically separate but similar transformer magnetic cores, each of which has two windings - a control winding and an AC winding. A small DC current from a low impedance source is fed into the series-connected control windings. The AC windings may be connected either in series or in parallel, the configurations resulting in different types of mag amps. The amount of control current fed into the control winding sets the point in the AC winding waveform at which either core will saturate. In saturation, the AC winding on the saturated core will go from a high impedance state ("off") into a very low impedance state ("on") - that is, the control current controls at which voltage the mag amp switches "on".

A relatively small DC current on the control winding is able to control or switch large AC currents on the AC windings. This results in current amplification.

Applications

Magnetic amplifiers were important as modulation and control amplifiers in the early development of voice transmission by radio.^[2] A magnetic amplifier was used as voice modulator for a 2 kilowatt Alexanderson alternator, and magnetic amplifiers were used in the keying circuits of large high-frequency alternators used for radio communications. Magnetic amplifiers were also used to regulate the speed of Alexanderson alternators to maintain the accuracy of the transmitted radio frequency.^[2]

The ability to control large currents with small control power made magnetic amplifiers useful for control of lighting circuits, for stage lighting and for advertising signs. Saturable reactor amplifiers were used for control of power to industrial furnaces.^[2] Small magnetic amplifiers were used for radio tuning indicators, control of small motor and cooling fan speed, control of battery chargers.

Magnetic amplifiers were used extensively as the switching element in early switched-mode (SMPS) power supplies,^[3] as well as in lighting control. Semiconductor based solid-state switches have largely superseded them, though recently there has been some regained interest in using mag amps in compact and reliable switching power supplies. PC ATX power supplies often use mag amps for secondary side voltage regulation.

Magnetic amplifiers are still used in some arc welders.

Magnetic amplifier transformer cores designed specifically for switch mode power supplies are currently manufactured by several large electromagnetics companies, including Metglas and Mag-Inc.

Magnetic amplifiers can be used for measuring high DC-voltages without direct connection to the high voltage and are therefore still used in the HVDC-technique.

Magnetic amplifiers were used by locomotives to detect wheel slip, until replaced by Hall Effect current transducers. The cables from two traction motors passed through the core of the device. During normal operation the resultant flux was zero as both currents were the same and in opposite directions. However, the currents would differ during wheel slip, producing a resultant flux that acted as the Control winding, developing a voltage across a resistor in series with the AC winding which was sent to the wheel slip correction circuits.

History

Early development

A voltage source and a series connected variable resistor may be regarded as a direct current signal source for a low resistance load such as the control coil of a saturable reactor which amplifies the signal. Thus, in principle, a saturable reactor is already an amplifier, although before 20th century they were used for simple tasks, such as controlling lighting and electrical machinery as early as 1885.^[4][5][6]

In the early 20th Century, the General Electric Company, under the direction of engineer E. F. W. Alexanderson, developed a system of transoceanic radio communications, using continuous wave transmission over great distances. Alexanderson drew upon the work of Nikola Tesla and Reginald Fessenden as the inspiration for his system.

The result of this work was the 2 kW Alexanderson alternator, which produced radio frequencies from 50 to 100 kHz and which critics had previously denounced as impractical. Later, Guglielmo Marconi took a vested interest in the project and, in 1915, witnessed a demonstration of a new, 50 kW, 50 kHz alternator.

The experimental telegraphy and telephony demonstrations made during 1917 attracted the attention of the US Government, especially in light of partial failures in the transoceanic cable that snaked across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The 50 kW alternator was commandeered by the US Navy and put into service in January 1918 and was used until 1920, when a 200 kW generator-alternator set was built and installed.

Usage in radio

Magnetic amplifiers were used early on to control large, high-power alternators by turning them on and off for telegraphy or to vary the signal for voice modulation. However, the alternator's frequency limits were rather low to where a frequency multiplier had to be utilized to generate higher radio frequencies than the alternator was capable of producing. Even so, early magnetic amplifiers incorporating powdered-iron cores were incapable of producing radio frequencies above approximately 200 kHz. Other core materials, such as ferrite cores and oil-filled transformers, would have to be developed to allow the amplifier to produce higher frequencies.

Usage in aircraft

Magnetic amplifiers were used in aircraft systems (avionics) before the advent of high reliability semiconductors. They were important in implementing early autoland systems and Concorde made use of the technology for the control of its engine air intakes before subsequent development of a replacement system using digital electronics.

Usage in computing

Magnetic amplifiers were widely studied during the 1950s as a potential switching element for mainframe computers. Mag amps could be used to sum several inputs in a single core, which was very useful in the arithmetic logic unit (ALU). Custom tubes could do the same, but transistors could not, so the mag amp was able to combine the advantages of tubes and transistors in an era when the latter were expensive and unreliable.

However, that era was very short, lasting from the mid 1950s to about 1960, at which point new fabrication techniques were producing great improvements in transistors and dramatically lowering their price points. Only one large-scale mag amp machine was put into production, the UNIVAC Solid State, but a number of contemporary late-1950's/early-1960s computers made some use of the technology, like the Ferranti Orion.

Misnomer uses

In the 1970s, Robert Carver designed and produced several high quality high-powered audio amplifiers, calling them magnetic amplifiers. In fact, they were in most respects conventional audio amplifier designs with an unusual power supply circuit. They were not magnetic amplifiers as defined in this article.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} H. P. Westman et al, (ed), Reference Data for Radio Engineers, Fifth Edition, 1968, Howard W. Sams and Co., no ISBN, Library of Congress Card No. 43-14665 chapter 14
2. ^ ^{a b c d} H. F. Storm, Magnetic Amplifiers, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1955 page 383
3. ^ Abraham I. Pressman (1997). Switching Power Supply Design. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-052236-7.
4. ^ Electronics Design and Development Division, ed (May 1954) [1951]. "History". Magnetic Amplifiers – A Rising Star in Naval Electronics. 18th and Constitution Avenue, Washington 25, D.C.: Bureau of Ships, Department of the Navy. p. 2. NAVSHIPS 900,172. "The magnetic amplifier is not new – the principles of the saturable core control were used in electrical machinery as early as 1885 although they were not identified as such." 
5. ^ Mali, Paul (August 1960). "Introduction" (PDF). Magnetic Amplifiers – Principles and Applications. New York: John F. Rider Publisher. p. 1. Library of Congress Catalog Number 60-12440. http://www.pmillett.com/Books/mag_amp.pdf. Retrieved 2010-09-19. "Magnetic amplifiers were developed as early as 1885 in the United States. At that time they were known as saturable reactors and were used primarily in electrical machinery and in theater lighting." 
6. ^ Kemp, Barron (August 1962). "Magnetic Amplifiers". Fundamentals of Magnetic Amplifiers. Indianapolis, Indiana: Howard W. Sams & Co.. p. 7. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-19650. "The use of magnetic forces for amplification is not new; a survey of its history shows that although the device was not known as a magnetic amplifier at the time, it was used in electrical machinery as early as 1885." 

• Alexanderson, E. F. W., "Transoceanic Radio Communication," General Electric Review, October 1920, pp. 794–797.
• Cheney, Margaret, "Tesla: Man Out of Time," 1981, New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
• Chute, George M., "Magnetic Amplifiers," Electronics in Industry, 1970, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., pp. 344–351.
• Trinkaus, George, "The Magnetic Amplifier: A Lost Technology of the 1950s," Nuts & Volts, February 2006, pp. 68–71.
• Trinkaus, George, editor, "Magnetic Amplifiers: Another Lost Technology," 1951: Electronics Design and Development Division, Bureau of Ships, United States Navy.

External links

• Magnetic Amplifier Control for Simple, Low-Cost, Secondary Regulation - B. Mammano, Texas Instruments Seminar 500
• MAG-AMP Magnetic Amplifiers Intro, Butlerwinding