René Thury
| René Thury | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
August 7, 1860 Plainpalais in Geneva |
| Died | April 23, 1938 (aged 77) Geneva |
| Residence | Switzerland |
| Nationality | Switzerland |
| Fields | Electrical engineering |
| Institutions | Société Instruments Physiques |
| Known for | High voltage direct current transmission |
| Influences | Marcel Deprez · Thomas Edison · Emil Bürgin |
| Notable awards | French Legion of Honor (1907) · Doctor Honoris Causa from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (1919) |
René Thury (August 7, 1860 – April 23, 1938) was a Swiss pioneer in electrical engineering. He was known for his work with high voltage direct current electricity transmission and was known in the professional world as the "King of DC."
René Thury's father, Marc-Antoine Thury was a teacher of Natural History. From 1874 René became an apprentice at Société Instruments Physiques, a precision machine building firm in Geneva working for Emil Bürgin who made refinements to the dynamos of Zénobe Gramme. When Bürgin left SIP in 1876, Thury became his successor. He was also served as a laboratory technician of Prof. Jacques-Louis Soret at the University of Geneva. Soret had acquired a Burgin dynamo placing it in series with batteries, and Thury secretly devised a means to make the batteries superfluous.
In 1877, he built a steam powered tricycle along with a medical student Jean-Jacques Nussberger who financed the project. It could reach 50 km/h and would be one of the first Swiss built cars. In 1904, Thury produced a gasoline electric parallel hybrid, whose all electric range was 40 km with a 550 kg battery, or 5 km with a 150 kg battery.
Some Swiss and German financiers were investigating financing a concession to build Edison company equipment and as part of this, Thury spent 6 months visiting the Menlo Park labs of Thomas Edison in the winter of 1880-1881. Thury was impressed with the latitude that Edison's researchers were given to pursue their ideas and developed a friendship with Edison. He gained many insights, but also came to the conclusion that Edison's Dynamos could be significantly improved. Back in Geneva, he directed the fabrication under SIP license of Edison and Gramme dynamos. He later worked briefly for Bürgin & Alioth Société d'électricité Alioth, and then changed as technical director for the A. & H. de Meuron Cuénod, where he designed his multipole dynamo for which he was awarded a patent in 1883. During 1882, Thury built a six pole dynamo to this design that yielded a much more compact dynamo than those of Edison. At the 1884 Turin exhibition it won the gold medal. Over the period 1883 to 1926 his ideas resulted in 19 additional patents.
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