Alternator/generator function question

[Doug1]

Short and to the point. How is it that a rotor fed with dc does not saturate and stop working?

[fritznien]

why would it stop? its just an electromagnet spinning inside a bigger coil.
fritznien

[Doug1]

 It's a trick question. It doesnt
The engine spins the magnet to rotate the feild translating horse power to produce ac.Seems odd there is no way to use ac to produce ac. Granted there are losses but cant those be over come by adding to the strength of the rotor feild with something a-kin to a meg? Without spinning the rotor? If losses were not a problem then unity could be acheived. I cant think of single good reason to produce more then enough to cover what is needed to continue operating under a load.

[mscoffman]

>Seems odd there is no way to use ac to produce ac

@Doug1;

Actually,    Stanly Myer reportedly did just this when he fed the modulation
DC square wave pulses destined for his electrolyzer directly into the field coil of
an alternator. Because the alternator produces horsepower based energy gain,
the alternator actually functions as a magnetic amplifier (in a standard EE sense).
An alternator already is an AC device but the frequency is set by shaft rotation
angular velocity.

:S:MarkSCoffman