Homopolar generator

U
B

Faraday disk, the rst homopolar generator

Faraday disc

A homopolar generator is a DC electrical generator

comprising an electrically conductive disc or cylinder rotating in a plane perpendicular to a uniform static magnetic eld. A potential dierence is created between the
center of the disc and the rim (or ends of the cylinder)
with an electrical polarity that depends on the direction of
rotation and the orientation of the eld. It is also known as
a unipolar generator, acyclic generator, disk dynamo,
or Faraday disc. The voltage is typically low, on the order of a few volts in the case of small demonstration models, but large research generators can produce hundreds
of volts, and some systems have multiple generators in series to produce an even larger voltage.[1] They are unusual
in that they can source tremendous electric current, some
more than a million amperes, because the homopolar generator can be made to have very low internal resistance.

backwards in regions outside the inuence of the magnetic eld. This counterow limits the power output to
the pickup wires, and induces waste heating of the copper
disc. Later homopolar generators would solve this problem by using an array of magnets arranged around the
disc perimeter to maintain a steady eld around the circumference, and eliminate areas where counterow could
occur.

2 Homopolar generator development

The Faraday disc

The homopolar generator was developed rst by Michael

Faraday during his experiments in 1831. It is frequently
called the Faraday disc or Faraday wheel in his honor.
It was the beginning of modern dynamos that is,
electrical generators which operate using a magnetic eld.
It was very inecient and was not used as a practical
power source, but it showed the possibility of generating electric power using magnetism, and led the way for
commutated direct current dynamos and then alternating
current alternators.
The Faraday disc was primarily inecient due to counterows of current. While current ow was induced directly underneath the magnet, the current would circulate The remains of the ANU 500 MJ generator
1

Long after the original Faraday disc had been abandoned

as a practical generator, a modied version combining the
magnet and disc in a single rotating part (the rotor) was
developed. Sometimes the name homopolar generator is
reserved for this conguration. One of the earliest patents
on the general type of homopolar generators was attained
by A. F. Delaeld, U.S. Patent 278,516. Other early
patents for homopolar generators were awarded to S. Z.
De Ferranti and C. Batchelor separately. Nikola Tesla
was interested in the Faraday disc and conducted work
with homopolar generators.[2] He eventually patented an
improved version of the device and his US patent (Dynamo Electric Machine) describes an arrangement of
two parallel discs with separate, parallel shafts, joined
like pulleys by a metallic belt. Each disc had a eld that
was the opposite of the other, so that the ow of current was from the one shaft to the disc edge, across the
belt to the other disc edge and to the second shaft. This
would have greatly reduced the frictional losses caused by
sliding contacts by allowing both electrical pickups to interface with the shafts of the two disks rather than at the
shaft and a high-speed rim. Later, patents were awarded
to C. P. Steinmetz and E. Thomson for their work with
homopolar generators. The Forbes dynamo, developed
by the Scottish electrical engineer George Forbes, was in
widespread use during the beginning of the 20th century.
Much of the development done in homopolar generators
was patented by J. E. Noeggerath and R. Eickemeyer.

ASTROPHYSICAL UNIPOLAR INDUCTORS

Basic Faraday disc generator

tions such as welding, electrolysis and railgun research.

In pulsed energy applications, the angular momentum of
the rotor is used to store energy over a long period and
then release it in a short time.

In contrast to other types of generators, the output voltage never changes polarity. The charge separation results from the Lorentz force on the free charges in the
disk. The motion is azimuthal and the eld is axial, so
the electromotive force is radial. The electrical contacts
are usually made through a "brush" or slip ring, which results in large losses at the low voltages generated. Some of
Homopolar generators underwent a renaissance in the these losses can be reduced by using mercury or other eas1950s as a source of pulsed power storage. These devices ily liquied metal or alloy (gallium, NaK) as the brush,
used heavy disks as a form of ywheel to store mechan- to provide essentially uninterrupted electrical contact.
ical energy that could be quickly dumped into an experiIf the magnetic eld is provided by a permanent magnet,
mental apparatus. An early example of this sort of device
the generator works regardless of whether the magnet
was built by Sir Mark Oliphant at the Research School of
is xed to the stator or rotates with the disc. Before
Physical Sciences and Engineering, Australian National
the discovery of the electron and the Lorentz force law,
University. It stored up to 500 megajoules of energy[3]
the phenomenon was inexplicable and was known as the
and was used as an extremely high-current source for
Faraday paradox.
synchrotron experimentation from 1962 until it was disassembled in 1986. Oliphants construction was capable
of supplying currents of up to 2 megaamperes (MA).

3.2 Drum-type generator

Similar devices of even larger size are designed and built

by Parker Kinetic Designs (formerly OIME Research &
Development) of Austin. They have produced devices for
a variety of roles, from powering railguns to linear motors (for space launches) to a variety of weapons designs.
Industrial designs of 10 MJ were introduced for a variety
of roles, including electrical welding.[4]

3
3.1

A drum-type homopolar generator has a magnetic eld

(B) that radiates radially from the center of the drum and
induces voltage (V) down the length of the drum. A conducting drum spun from above in the eld of a loudspeaker type of magnet that has one pole in the center of
the drum and the other pole surrounding the drum could
use conducting ball bearings at the top and bottom of the
drum to pick up the generated current.

Description and operation

Disk-type generator

This device consists of a conducting ywheel rotating in

a magnetic eld with one electrical contact near the axis
and the other near the periphery. It has been used for
generating very high currents at low voltages in applica-

4 Astrophysical unipolar inductors

Unipolar inductors occur in astrophysics where a conductor rotates through a magnetic eld, for example, the
movement of the highly conductive plasma in a cosmic bodys ionosphere through its magnetic eld. In

3
their book, Cosmical Electrodynamics, Hannes Alfvn
and Carl-Gunne Flthammar write:
Since cosmical clouds of ionized gas are generally magnetized, their motion produces induced electric elds [..] For example the motion of the magnetized interplanetary plasma
produces electric elds that are essential for the
production of aurora and magnetic storms [..]
".. the rotation of a conductor in a magnetic
eld produces an electric eld in the system at
rest. This phenomenon is well known from laboratory experiments and is usually called 'homopolar ' or 'unipolar' induction.[5]

Homopolar motor
Faraday paradox
Faradays law of induction

7 References
[1] Losty, H.H.W & Lewis, D.L. (1973) Homopolar Machines. Philosophical Transactions for the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences. 275 (1248), 69-75
[2] Nikola Tesla, "Notes on a Unipolar Dynamo". The Electrical Engineer, N.Y., Sept. 2, 1891. (Also available at
tesla.hu, Article 18910902)

Unipolar inductors have been associated with the aurorae on Uranus,[6] binary stars,[7][8] black holes,[9][10][11]
galaxies,[12] the Jupiter Io system,[13][14] the Moon,[15][16]
the Solar Wind,[17] sunspots,[18][19] and in the Venusian
magnetic tail.[20]

[3] J.W. Blamey, P.O. Carden, L.U. Hibbard, E.K. Inall,

R.A. Marshall and Sir Mark Oliphant, 'The large homopolar generator at Canberra: initial tests, Nature, 195
(1962), pp. 113114.

[5] Hannes Alfvn and Carl-Gunne Flthammar, Cosmical

Electrodynamics (1963) 2nd Edition, Oxford University
Press. See sec. 1.3.1. Induced electric eld in uniformly
moving matter.

Physics

Like all dynamos, the Faraday disc converts kinetic energy to electrical energy. This machine can not be analysed using Faradays own law of electromagnetic induction. This law (in its modern form) states that an electric
current is induced in a closed electrical circuit when the
magnetic ux enclosed by the circuit changes. In Faradays law, EMF is the time-derivative of ux, so a DC
EMF is only possible if the magnetic ux is getting uniformly larger and larger perpetually. But in the generator, the magnetic eld is constant and the disc stays in the
same position, so no magnetic uxes are growing larger
and larger. So this example cannot be analyzed directly
with Faradays law.

[4] Thomas Valone, The Homopolar Handbook, Integrity

Research Institute, 1994 , pg. 45

[6] Hill, T. W.; Dessler, A. J.; Rassbach, M. E., "Aurora

on Uranus A Faraday disc dynamo mechanism" (1983)
Planetary and Space Science (ISSN 0032-0633), vol. 31,
Oct. 1983, p. 11871198
[7] Hannes Alfvn, "Sur l'origine de la radiation cosmique"
(On the origin of cosmic radiation)" Comptes Rendus,
204, pp.11801181 (1937)
[8] Hakala, Pasi et al., "Spin up in RX J0806+15: the shortest
period binary" (2003) Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 343, Issue 1, pp. L10L14
[9] Lovelace, R.V.E. "Dynamo Model of Double Radio

The Lorentz force law is more easily used to explain the

Sources"
machines behaviour. This law, formulated thirty years
after Faradays death, states that the force on an electron [10] Burns, M. L.; Lovelace, R. V. E., "Theory of electronpositron showers in double radio sources" (1982) Astrois proportional to the cross product of its velocity and the
physical Journal, Part 1, vol. 262, Nov. 1, 1982, p. 8799
magnetic ux vector. In geometrical terms, this means
that the force is at right-angles to both the velocity (az- [11] Shatskii, A. A., "Unipolar Induction of a Magnetized Accretion Disk around a Black Hole", (2003) Astronomy Letimuthal) and the magnetic ux (axial), which is therefore
ters, vol. 29, p. 153157
in a radial direction. The radial movement of the electrons in the disc produces a charge separation between [12] Per Carlqvist, "Cosmic electric currents and the generalthe center of the disc and its rim, and if the circuit is
ized Bennett relation" (1988) Astrophysics and Space Scicompleted an electric current will be produced.[21]
ence (ISSN 0004-640X), vol. 144, no. 12, May 1988,
pp. 7384.

See also

[13] Goldreich, P.; Lynden-Bell, D., "Io, a jovian unipolar inductor" (1969) Astrophys. J., vol. 156, pp. 5978 (1969).

Barlows wheel

[14] Strobel, Darrell F.; et al., "Hubble Space Telescope Space

Telescope Imaging Spectrograph Search for an Atmosphere on Callisto: A Jovian Unipolar Inductor" (2002)
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 581, Issue 1, pp. L51
L54

Electric generator
Electric motor

[15] Sonett, C. P.; Colburn, D. S., "Establishment of a Lunar

Unipolar Generator and Associated Shock and Wake by
the Solar Wind" (1967) Nature, vol. 216, 340343.
[16] Schwartz, K.; Sonett, C. P.; Colburn, D. S., "Unipolar Induction in the Moon and a Lunar Limb Shock Mechanism" in The Moon, Vol. 1, p.7
[17] Srnka, L. J., "Sheath-limited unipolar induction in the solar wind" (1975) Astrophysics and Space Science', vol. 36,
Aug. 1975, pp. 177204.
[18] Yang, Hai-Shou, "A force free eld theory of solar
ares I. Unipolar sunspots" Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 5, Issue 1, pp. 7783.
[19] Osherovich, V. A.; Garcia, H. A., "Electric current in a
unipolar sunspot with an untwisted eld" (1990) Geophysical Research Letters (ISSN 0094-8276), vol. 17, Nov.
1990, pp. 22732276.
[20] Eroshenko, E. G., "Unipolar induction eects in the
Venusian magnetic tail" (1979) Kosmicheskie Issledovaniia, vol. 17, Jan.Feb. 1979, pp. 9310
[21] Electromagnetic Field Theory, 2nd ed. by Bo Thid, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University,
Sweden

7.1

General references

Don Lancaster, "Shattering the homopolar myths".

Tech Musings, October, 1997. (PDF)
Don Lancaster, "Understanding Faradays Disk".
Tech Musings, October, 1997. (PDF)
John David Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics, Wiley, 3rd ed. 1998, ISBN 0-471-30932-X
Arthur I. Miller, Unipolar Induction: A Case Study
of the Interaction between Science and Technology, Annals of Science, Volume 38, pp. 155189
(1981).
Olivier Darrigol, Electrodynamics from Ampere to
Einstein, Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 019-850594-9
Trevor Ophel and John Jenkin, (1996) Fire in the
belly : the rst 50 years of the pioneer school at the
ANU Canberra : Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Australian National University. ISBN 0-85800-048-2. (PDF)
Thomas Valone, The Homopolar Handbook : A
Denitive Guide to Faraday Disk and N-Machine
Technologies. Washington, DC, U.S.A.: Integrity
Research Institute, 2001. ISBN 0-964107-0-1-5

EXTERNAL LINKS

7.2 Further reading

Richard A. Marshall and William F. Weldon, "Parameter Selection for Homopolar Generators Used as
Pulsed Energy Stores", Center for Electromechanics,
University of Texas, Austin, Jul. 1980. (also published in: Electrical Machines and Electromechanics, 6:109127, 1981.)

8 External links
Popular Science Monthly, Construction of Unipolar
Dynamos, April 1916, pp. 624626, Scanned article available via Google Books: http://books.google.
com/books?id=hCYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA624
Robert Hebner, "Homopolar Generator". Homopolar Welding, UT-CEM.
"K2-64: Unipolar generator". physics.umd.edu.
Richard E. Berg and Carroll O. Alley, "The Unipolar Generator: A Demonstration of Special Relativity", Department of Physics, University of Maryland, 2005. (PDF)
Richard Fitzpatrick, "Magnetohydrodynamic theory
", The homopolar generator. farside.ph.utexas.edu,
2006-02-16.
"5K10.80 Homopolar Generator; Lecture Demonstrations.". physics.brown.edu
William J. Beaty, "Untried Homopolar Generator
Experiments". 1996.

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