Amplidyne

Submitted by By:
VIVEK KUMAR(20109018)
VINEET KUMAR SINGH(20108079)

Amplidyne
Introduction:
An amplidyne is a special type of motor-generator which uses
regeneration to increase its gain. Energy comes from the motor,
and the power output is controlled by changing the field current
of the generator. In a typical generator the load brushes are
positioned perpendicular to the magnetic field flux. To convert a
generator to an amplidyne you connect what would be the load
brushes together and take the output from another set of brushes
that are parallel with the field. The perpendicular brushes are
now called the 'quadrature' brushes. This simple change can
increase the gain by a factor of 10,000 or more.
Historically, amplidynes were one of the first amplifiers to
generate very high power (tens of kilowatts), allowing precise
feedback control of heavy machinery. Vacuum tubes of
reasonable size were unable to deliver enough power to control
large motors, but vacuum tube circuits driving the input of an
amplidyne could be used to boost small signals up to the power
needed to drive large motors. Early (World War II era) gun
tracking and radar systems used this approach.
Amplidynes are now obsolete technology. Modern electronic
devices for controlling power in the kilowatt range include
MOSFET and IGBT devices.

An amplidyne is capable of giving a controlled power outputin

the range of a few hundred to few thousand watts with a power
amplification of the order of 10,000 or more and hence finds
wide application in feedback control system.
Characteristics:The nature of external char. of cross-field
generator with various degrees of compensation are shown in
the figures below

It can be seen from the figure that for low values of

compensation the machine gives an approximately constant
current characteristics ,while for degree of compensation of the
order of unity the machine gives approximately constant voltage
characteristics.

Where C=Nc/Na
Nc=effective compensating winding turns
Na=effective d-axis armature turns
Applications:
It is widely used for various purposes particularly in feed-back
control systems where the regulated power requirement is in the
range of 1 to 50 KW. It may sometimes be found economical to
feed the field winding directly from the Amplidyne. It can also
serve as a generator in Ward-Leonard system of speed control
provided that the controlled DC motor rating is not very high.
In general when the controlled power requirements
are within the range of cross field machines ,Amplidynes
competes favorably with other type of controlled
configurations.

Advantages :
1. Amplidyne generate very high power ,allowing precise
feedback control of the heavy machinery.
2. The resultant d-axis flux is equal to the field flux. In
other words the d-axis flux is completely under the
control of field winding and unaffected by d-axis
armature current.
3. Amplidyne circuit is also used by U.S. navy naval gun
control. This is a high power position servo system.

Drawbacks:
Main drawback of amplidyne is sparking at the brushes due to
armature reaction on which the operation of the machine
depends. Special brushes and construction of the field poles are
used to alleviate this difficulty. It often sparks very severely at
the quadrature brushes when delivering large output voltages

Questions
1. What is the difference between metadyne and Amplidyne?
The main difference between metadyne and Amplidyne is
that Amplidyne has the compensating winding while
metadyne doesnt.
2. When this machine is known as constant current source and
when constant voltage source?
When degree of compensation is 0 the this machine is
known as constant current ,when the degree of
compensation is of the order of unity the this machine is
known as constant voltage source.