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Re: words & definitions

Dear dwp,

You should be writing textbooks.  Maybe we need a new word for this 
"saturation" effect.  I have been calling the very same thing the 
"zener effect" for about ten years.  That is, more power in = same 
spark out.  The effect gets worse as power levels go up.

Zap,
Mark

===================================================================
You wrote: 

>Classic Transformers convert essentially all the input current into a 
magnetic
>current (flux) , that flows thru the core.  It is possible to do 
without the
>core, however efficiency suffers (or the transfomer must be big, or 
both). 
>Core materials, in "conducting" magnetic flux behave somewhat, but not 
exactly,
>like wires conducting electric current. 
>
>One of the differences is that as the flux increases (more power 
passed thru
>the transformer) the core gets "non linear".  It ceases, fairly 
abruptly, to be
>an efficient magnetic conductor.  Losses go up.  Output drops.  There 
is no
>analagous behavior, in the case of wire conducting electrical 
currrent.  The
>cure for saturation is simple: more iron (or whatever core is being 
used).
>
>An AIR CORE coil, as a tesla coil, having no iron/steel/whatever core, 
cannot
>saturate IN THIS SENSE.  Air core coils/transformers are commonly used 
at
>"high frequencies" where the losses in any core would be prohibitive.  
Losses
>in the core go up with frequency.  (ferrite cores, as adopted in RF 
work, are a
>sort of middle ground...) 
>