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The usual waveform of alternating current in most electric power circuits is a sine wave, whose positive half-period corresponds with positive direction of the current and vice versa (the full period is called a cycle). "Alternating current" most commonly refers to power distribution, but a wide range of other applications are technically ...
When the appliance is shaken back and forth, the magnet oscillates through the coil and induces an electric current. This current is used to charge a capacitor, thus storing energy for later use. The appliance can then produce light, typically from a light-emitting diode, until the capacitor is discharged. It can then be re-charged by further ...
In what is considered the first industrial use of alternating current in 1891, workers pose with a Westinghouse alternator at the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant.This machine was used as a generator producing 3,000-volt, 133-hertz, single-phase AC, and an identical machine 3 miles (4.8 km) away was used as an AC motor.
In a simple alternating current (AC) circuit consisting of a source and a linear time-invariant load, both the current and voltage are sinusoidal at the same frequency. [3] If the load is purely resistive, the two quantities reverse their polarity at the same time. Hence, the instantaneous power, given by the product of voltage and current, is ...
Most loads expect a certain voltage and, for alternating current devices, a certain frequency and number of phases. The appliances found in residential settings, for example, will typically be single-phase operating at 50 or 60 Hz with a voltage between 110 and 260 volts (depending on national standards).
While AC offered benefits with transformation and reduced current, the alternating nature of voltage and current lead to additional challenges with the natural capacitance and inductance of transmission lines. Heavily loaded lines consumed reactive power due to the line's inductance, and as transmission voltage increased throughout the 20th ...
The plant was the first to generate alternating current electric power for industrial application and it was a demonstration of the efficiency in AC transmission. This was a precedent to larger for much larger plants such as the Edward Dean Adams Power Plant in Niagara Falls, New York in 1895. [ 12 ]
In other media, any stream of charged objects (ions, for example) may constitute an electric current. To provide a definition of current independent of the type of charge carriers, conventional current is defined as moving in the same direction as the positive charge flow. So, in metals where the charge carriers (electrons) are negative ...