Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 144
OCR for page 145
AUGUST UNO LAM M
1 904-1 989
BY WILLIAM R GOULD
AUGUST UNO LAMM a distinguished engineer of international
reputation and renown, a prolific inventor, and the man who is
most properly called the father of modern direct-current electri-
cal transmission, died on Tune 1, 1989, at the age of eighty-five.
Uno, as he was known to his many friends and associates, was
born in Goteborg, Sweden, on May22, 1904. All references to his
childhood indicate that it was a happy one. He grew up as the
second of three children in a home where the mother and father
were both dedicated to the cultural arts of music, poetry, litera-
ture, and painting. His father, an engineer by profession, wrote
poetry, played the violin, served on the local theater board, en cl
designed clean-lined furniture as several of his many nonprofes-
sional interests. He required all of his children to pursue the arts
and study music. Uncler his guidance Uno learned to play the
violin and developed a lifelong interest in music, the theater,
opera, and the finer arts. It was also from his father that an early
interest in engineering developed. This led to his pursuit of a
technical education and his subsequent successful career as a
clistinguished engineer of world renown.
His early education was obtained at the Royal Institute of
Technology in Stockholm, from which he received an M.S. in
electrical engineering in 1927. Subsequently, while employed
full time at the large Swedish industrial conglomerate ASEA, and
involves! in clemanding technical program development, he
145
OCR for page 146
146
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
pursued a Ph.D. in his spare time. This was awarded to him at the
age of thirty-nine by The Royal Institute in 1943. The subject of
his thesis was "The Transductor, D.C. Pre-Saturated Reactor."
His employment began shortly after the completion of his
master's degree and a short compulsory period of service in the
Swedish military. As was customary for newly graduated engi-
neers, he entered an apprentice program in 1928withASEA. His
first assignments were in mechanical assembly in what to clay we
wouIcT call the blue collar sector of the work force. Here he
learned "hands on" the business of producing a product that had
been conceivecl, designed, and planned by engineers.
This assignment was of short duration. After less than a year
of service he was withdrawn from the apprentice program and
asked to take charge of the development of a new product: the
low-voltage mercu~y-arc rectifier. By 1929 he was named the
manager of ASEA's newly formed rectifier department at the
Lucivika manufacturing complex. Also in 1929 ASEA applier! for
a patent on Lamm's design for a mercury-arc "valve" (rectifier)
that would operate at high voltages. This was to be the first of
some 150 patents covering the work of his fertile mind.
With this impressive start, Lamm's career was firmly launched
into whet would be his lifetime'swork. Over the years, he and his
team of engineers at ASEA would evolve the technology that
would make high-voltage direct-current transmission a reality: a
technology that would permit needed transmission links to be
constructed over many hunclreds of miles in point-to-point
distance, over all kinds of terrain, under the sea, and under-
groun(1 in populous areas. It wouIcl make possible the applica-
tion of back-to-back alternating-current-direct-current-alter-
nating-current (AC-DC-AC) links to overcome adverse effects of
phase angle variations and circulating vars on large integrated
alternating-current systems. ItwouIcl provide the inspiration and
incentive for others to develop the solid-state technology that
would be a successor to the mercury plasma valves that were the
result of this early work.
Many people in industry recognized the need for this technol-
ogy before itwas available. Some clespaired that itwouIcl become
a reality. But as in all things there had to be a beginning. For
OCR for page 147
AUGUST UNO LAMM
147
some twenty years the management of ASEA funded the re-
search en c! development work of Uno Lamm and his associates
without near-term prospect of a product that would return a
profit. That Uno was able to persuade the company to do this is
a singular achievement in management.
Over those twenty years, the Swectish State Power Board
maintained their interest and offered encouragement through
the use of their system for experimentation. Finally in 1950 the
power board ordered the first commercial DC transmission
system in the worm. It was to be built between the mainiancl of
Sweden and the Island of Gotland. The venture was a success,
and like all successes it was replicates! and improved upon not
only byASEA but also by other manufacturers and power systems
in the world. In less than twenty years there were DC systems in
operation in Europe, Asia, North America, and elsewhere in the
world.
A landmark achievement in direct-current transmission, and
one that brought the technology to full maturity, was the builcl-
ing of the so-called Pacific Tntertie. This was a transmission
system built by a consortium of large electric power systems,
public and private, on the Pacific Coast of the United States. It
was also to be the high point in the use of mercury-arc technol-
ogy future systems would look to the emerging technology of
solid-state, semiconductor, or transistor-type valves. In the engi-
neering and construction of the Pacific Intertie, it was planner!
to build two parallel AC lines and one DC line. They would
interconnect the hydro-based systems of the Pacific Northwest
with the large market area served by the predominantly thermal-
based systems of Southern California and the Southwest. It
would be the first time that high-capacity AC and DC systems
would be operated in parallel.
The problems in this venture were many and diverse. Advanc-
es in the state of the art in both AC and DC practice were to be
made. Moreover, there were significant political problems, be-
cause the project involved entities of different regions of the
western states and of different ownership format. In all of this
Uno Lamm filled the role of technical consultant, political
adviser, and peacemaker. While many individuals, corporate
OCR for page 148
148
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
entities, and political subdivisions of government made notable
and enabling contributions to the success of the undertaking,
that of Uno Lamm was salient in its importance. From this
endeavor DC transmission emerged as a truly mature and estab-
lished technology with Uno Lamm as the acknowledger! founder,
pioneer, and practitioner. Electrical engineering as a science
and a profession would from that point forward be in his debt.
It would be misleading to represent the technical contribu-
tions ant! interests of Uno Lamm as limited to rectifier or direct-
current technologies. His interests were many and his other
contributions were significant. For example, in 1955 he orga-
nized the nuclear engineering effort for ASEA at Vasteras,
Sweden, the location of the company's headquarters. He was
subsequently their representative on the board of directors of
the Swedish state-financed Atomic Energy Company. He saw the
first nuclear reactors go into commercial operation and perform
in a safe and successful manner. The situation at the end of the
decade of the l980s wherein more than 50 percent of Sweden's
electric power needs were furnished by nuclear facilities is due
in no small part to his participation in this venture. The fact that
Swollen, beset with political and environmental controversy,
subsequently made a political decision to phase out nuclear
power production does not detract from the integrity of these
plants or the achievements of Uno Lamm and his associates in
these ventures.
It is not uncommon for technical and scientific innovators to
add worsts to our lexicon. Such was the case with Uno Lamm.
Perhaps he little knewwhen he wrote that early thesis and coined
the word transductor that it would lead him to apply the word
transistor casually to a similar device while making a speech on
this technology. When William Shockley received the Nobel
Prize for the invention of the transistor and applied this name to
it, he was reported to have said that he had heard "some Swede"
use the word in a technical presentation and thought it aptly
applied to his new discovery. Today it is a household word in
several languages. When Uno in 1970 introduced the semicon-
ductor into Sweden to replace mercury-arc technology, he ap-
OCR for page 149
AUGUST UNO LAMM
149
plied the name "Thyristor" to it. This word is also in general use
today.
Uno Lamm was also a prolific writer over his long and eventful
life. Some eighty technical papers bear his name and enrich the
technical literature of our profession. In addition he has contrib-
uted something on the order of one hundred articles, mostly in
Swedish newspapers and magazines, on such diverse subjects as
societal commentary, education, technology, political commen-
tary, and economics.
The institutes, academies, and professional societies have also
recognized him. He was elected to membership in the Royal
Academy of Engineering Sciences, Royal Academy of Sciences,
and the Royal Society of Sciences, all in Sweden. In the United
States he was elected a foreign associate of the National Academy
of Engineering in 1976. The Institute of Electrical and Electron-
.
arcs Engineers (IEEE) elected him a fellow and named him
director-at-large for the years 1967 to 1988.
In 1973 his portrait was hung in Gripsholm Castle on the
outskirts of Stockholm. In this he joined the King and Queen of
Swell en ant! many of his distinguished countrymen who are thus
honored for the credit and recognition they have brought to
their country.
Awards, medals, and similar recognitions were numerous.
They included the Gold Medal of the Swedish Royal Academy of
Engineering, Knighthood of Sweden's Royal Order of Vasa,
France's Ordre du Merite pour la Recherche et I'Invention, and
the IEEE Lamme Medal. Lastly, the IEEE Power Engineering
Society in 1981 establisher} the Uno Lamm High Voltage Direct
Current Award.
Now, just a word about the man of the notable career and the
person behind the legends. Uno Lamm was known by legions of
associates, peers, colleagues, and friends as a kind, gentle,
person with a warm heart, a really hand, and a friendly smile. He
is remembered as being pleasant company in all social or
business situations. He charmed all, especially the ladies, with his
gallant manner. He was a loving father and a doting grandfather.
The fondness for music, literature, the theater, and the arts with
OCR for page 150
150
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
which he was endowed in childhood persisted throughout his
life and flowered in his later and less-active years. It was a sincere
pleasure to have known him and a high privilege to have called
him a friend.
In closing this inadequate tribute, we value a great man one
of the giants in our profession of engineering; a man with a
fertile ant! prolific mind for innovation and invention; one who
left the field better than he found it; a man without guile or
offense, but capable of intolerance of mediocrity in societal,
engineering, and political institutions. And above all he was a
warm and true friend. We salute August Uno Lamm.
OCR for page 151
Representative terms from entire chapter:
august uno
