Károly Zipernowsky (born as Carl Zipernowsky, 4 April 1853 in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
– 29 November 1942 in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
)
was an
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n-born
Hungarian electrical engineer. He invented the
transformer
A transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces a varying magnetic flux in the transformer' ...
with his colleagues (
Miksa Déri
Miksa Déri (27 October 1854 November, Bács, Kingdom of Hungary, (now: Bač, Serbia) – 3 March 1938) was a Hungarian electrical engineer, inventor, power plant builder. He contributed with his partners Károly Zipernowsky and Ottó Bláth ...
and
Ottó Bláthy
Ottó Titusz Bláthy (11 August 1860 – 26 September 1939) was a Hungarian electrical engineer. In his career, he became the co-inventor of the modern electric transformer, the tension regulator, the AC watt-hour meter. motor capacitor f ...
) at the famous
Hungarian manufacturing company
Ganz Works
The Ganz Works or Ganz ( or , ''Ganz companies'', formerly ''Ganz and Partner Iron Mill and Machine Factory'') was a group of companies operating between 1845 and 1949 in Budapest, Hungary. It was named after Ábrahám Ganz, the founder and the ...
and he contributed significantly with his works also to other
AC technologies.
Biography
Zipernowsky, with
Ottó Bláthy
Ottó Titusz Bláthy (11 August 1860 – 26 September 1939) was a Hungarian electrical engineer. In his career, he became the co-inventor of the modern electric transformer, the tension regulator, the AC watt-hour meter. motor capacitor f ...
and
Miksa Déri
Miksa Déri (27 October 1854 November, Bács, Kingdom of Hungary, (now: Bač, Serbia) – 3 March 1938) was a Hungarian electrical engineer, inventor, power plant builder. He contributed with his partners Károly Zipernowsky and Ottó Bláth ...
, all of Ganz and Company, were researching ways of increasing efficiency of electrical power transmission. They experimented with power supplies and current transformation, which led to the invention of the ZBD alternating current transformer in 1885. The ZBD system is based on a closed-iron ring core with an arbitrary diameter and a coil around the core, which conducts
AC current. Their system converted higher voltage suitable for energy transmission to lower "''service''"-level voltage (step-down transformer).