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AC motors

In 1824, French physicist François Arago formulated the existence of rotating magnetic fields, termed Arago's rotations, which, by manually turning switches on and off, Walter Baily demonstrated in 1879 as in effect the first primitive induction motor. In the 1880s many inventors were trying to develop workable AC motors because AC's advantages in long-distance high-voltage transmission were offset by the inability to operate motors on AC.

The first alternating-current commutatorless induction motor was invented by Galileo Ferraris in 1885. Ferraris was able to improve his first design by producing more advanced setups in 1886. In 1888, the Royal Academy of Science of Turin published Ferraris's research detailing the foundations of motor operation, while concluding at that time that "the apparatus based on that principle could not be of any commercial importance as motor."

Possible industrial development was envisioned by Nikola Tesla, who invented independently his induction motor in 1887 and obtained a patent in May 1888. In the same year, Tesla presented his paper A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transformers to the AIEE that described three patented two-phase four-stator-pole motor types: one with a four-pole rotor forming a non-self-starting reluctance motor, another with a wound rotor forming a self-starting induction motor, and the third a true synchronous motor with separately excited DC supply to rotor winding. One of the patents Tesla filed in 1887, however, also described a shorted-winding-rotor induction motor. George Westinghouse, who had already acquired rights from Ferraris (US$1,000), promptly bought Tesla's patents (US$60,000 plus US$2.50 per sold hp, paid until 1897), employed Tesla to develop his motors, and assigned C.F. Scott to help Tesla; however, Tesla left for other pursuits in 1889. The constant speed AC induction motor was found not to be suitable for street cars, but Westinghouse engineers successfully adapted it to power a mining operation in Telluride, Colorado in 1891. Westinghouse achieved its first practical induction motor in 1892 and developed a line of polyphase 60 hertz induction motors in 1893, but these early Westinghouse motors were two-phase motors with wound rotors. B.G. Lamme later developed a rotating bar winding rotor.

Steadfast in his promotion of three-phase development, Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky invented the three-phase induction motor in 1889, of both types cage-rotor and wound rotor with a starting rheostat, and the three-limb transformer in 1890. After an agreement between AEG and Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon, Doliwo-Dobrowolski and Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown developed larger models, namely a 20-hp squirrel cage and a 100-hp wound rotor with a starting rheostat. These were the first three-phase asynchronous motors suitable for practical operation. Since 1889, similar developments of three-phase machinery were started Wenström. At the 1891 Frankfurt International Electrotechnical Exhibition, the first long distance three-phase system was successfully presented. It was rated 15 kV and extended over 175 km from the Lauffen waterfall on the Neckar river. The Lauffen power station included a 240 kW 86 V 40 Hz alternator and a step-up transformer while at the exhibition a step-down transformer fed a 100-hp three-phase induction motor that powered an artificial waterfall, representing the transfer of the original power source. The three-phase induction is now used for the vast majority of commercial applications. Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky claimed that Tesla's motor was not practical because of two-phase pulsations, which prompted him to persist in his three-phase work.

The General Electric Company began developing three-phase induction motors in 1891. By 1896, General Electric and Westinghouse signed a cross-licensing agreement for the bar-winding-rotor design, later called the squirrel-cage rotor. Induction motor improvements flowing from these inventions and innovations were such that a 100- horsepower induction motor currently has the same mounting dimensions as a 7.5-horsepower motor in 1897.