Zénobe Théophile Gramme (French pronunciation: [zenɔb teɔfil ɡʁam]; 4 April 1826 – 20 January 1901) was a Belgian electrical engineer. He was born on 4 April 1826 in Jehay-Bodegnée and was the sixth child in his family. He passed away on 20 January 1901 in Bois-Colombes. Gramme invented the Gramme machine, a type of direct current dynamo that produced more steady electricity and much higher voltages than earlier dynamos.
Career
Gramme had limited reading and writing skills throughout his life. His skills were in crafts, and after finishing school, he became a woodworker. When he moved to Paris, he worked as a model maker for a company that made electrical equipment, where he developed an interest in technology.
After creating an improved dynamo, Gramme partnered with Hippolyte Fontaine to start a factory to make and improve the device. The business, named Société des Machines Magnéto-Électriques Gramme, produced the Gramme dynamo, Gramme ring, Gramme armature, and other tools. In 1873, a Gramme dynamo was displayed at an exhibition in Vienna.
In 1877, Gramme was honored as an officer of the National Order of the Legion of Honour. In 1888, he received the final one of the important Volta Prizes awarded by the French government.
Gramme machine as motor
In 1873, he and Hippolyte Fontaine accidentally found that the device could work backwards and spin when connected to any DC power supply. The Gramme machine was the first electrical motor strong enough to be used successfully in factories. Before Gramme's inventions, electric motors had very little power and were mostly used as toys or for experiments in science labs.
In 1875, Nikola Tesla saw a Gramme machine at the Graz University of Technology. He thought of using it for alternating current but could not develop the idea at that time.
Family
In 1857, he married Hortense Nysten, who was a woman whose husband had died and who was the mother of a daughter named Héloïse. Hortense passed away in 1890. On August 17, 1891, he married Antonie Schentur in the town of Bois-Colombes.
Death and tributes
Gramme died in Bois-Colombes, France, on January 20, 1901, and was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.
In the town where his second wife grew up and where Gramme visited each year for several months, he helped build an avenue to cool an underground water pipe constructed in 1898. This avenue was named Gramme-Allee in 1902.
In the city of Liège, there is an engineering school called l'Institut Gramme, which is named after him.
In 2005, Gramme was ranked 23rd in the election titled Le plus grand Belge (The Greatest Belgian), a television show broadcast by RTBF, a French-speaking channel, and inspired by the BBC show 100 Greatest Britons.
A sailing ship of the Belgian Navy, named A958 Zenobe Gramme (1961–), used for training, is also named after him.