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Summary: "Motor
Research & Development -- Not What it Used to Be " With
trilingual summary
Well over a
century ago in the United States, Thomas Edison established what has
been called the first industrial research laboratory. After his firm
evolved into the General Electric Company, it and many competitors
(large and small) maintained research facilities that developed both
products and manufacturing capabilities to give the United States
technological leadership.
Today, as
factory production from automobiles to textiles moves rapidly
outside the country, defenders of the "outsourcing" and "offshoring"
trends argue that the United States can hope to maintain such
leadership only in basic research outside the realm of "mature"
industries such as industrial electrical apparatus.
Whatever
the truth of that, research work once done by U. S. electrical
apparatus manufacturers in their own laboratories is no longer the
major source of either product or manufacturing innovations. For
example, insulating tapes or resins; coil winding machinery;
lamination production; squirrel cage rotor construction --
developments in these and other motor manufacturing concerns
increasingly originate outside the motor industry itself, as plants
have been closed, engineering staffs reduced, and overseas
competition has intensified.
Domestic
leadership is more often displayed by a variety of outside
organizations, many of them founded only a few years ago. They
include ACEEE (American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy);
CEE (Consortium for Energy Efficiency), which developed higher motor
efficiency standards eventually resulting in NEMA's "Premium"
product line); EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute), sponsoring
research into motor efficiency and improved motor repair methods;
EPRI's PEAC (Power Electronics Applications Center), testing
apparatus response to power interruptions, and the capabilities of
drive systems; CDA (Copper Development Association), sponsoring
development of cast copper squirrel-cage rotors; MRC (Motor Resource
Center), studying reliability and cost-effectiveness of "Premium"
motors; and the U. S. DoE (Department of Energy), using several
National Laboratories to evaluate apparatus test methods and
efficiencies.
Meanwhile,
the IEEE -- world's largest professional organization of electrical
engineers -- continues to emphasize "new" technologies, such as
microelectronics, while de-emphasizing manufacturing of power
apparatus, and power engineering education. In the United States,
continuing decline in research and development within industry
itself appears inevitable.
From "Motor
Research & Development -- Not What it Used to Be"
...by
Richard L. Nailen, EA Engineering Editor - published in
Electrical Apparatus
April 2005
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