From: Paul
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 11:55:50 +0100
Subject: Re: [TSSP] The Corum's model?
Thanks Barry and Terry for the pointer to http://www.ttr.com/corum/index.htm I *have* seen this one before - but I didn't think it was relevant to our discussion - it's not a presentation of a theory, just a poorly written, ranting and misleading tutorial. Malcolm, perhaps this is not the Corum 'theory' you were thinking of? I'll comment on it anyway! The authors are advocating a transmission line model as a better description of a tesla resonator than the lumped model. OK, thats fine and obvious. But then in doing so they perpetuate the mistaken belief that transmission line resonance represents a different mode of operation of a tesla coil, compared with 'lumped operation'. Corums wrote: > If lumped analysis describes your coil, cheer up - modify its > operation to an open resonator and you'll see what Tesla called, > on July 11, 1899, "a beautiful advance in the art"! A 'lumped component' is of course a theoretical fiction, approximately valid for frequencies where the electrical length of the component is small compared to the wavelength in the component. It's convenient because it allows us to do circuit theory, it certainly doesn't offer an alternative mode of operation! (See my recent attempt to quench this myth, in the list, http://www.pupman.com/listarchives/2000/August/msg01119.html) Most of the rest of the article is spent with a mediocre, incomplete, but essentially correct description of transmission line theory as applied to the behaviour of tesla secondaries. This is just a restatement of conventional understanding. No new theory is offered, no predictions, and no testable proposals for improving performance. Regards, -- Paul Nicholson, Manchester, UK. --
Maintainer Paul Nicholson, paul@abelian.demon.co.uk.