The characteristics and applications of the selenium rectifier

The paper is divided into three main sections. The first of these deals with the method of manufacture and formation of the discs, and with the forward and reverse voltage/current and voltage/resistance characteristics and the effects of temperature variations, ageing and capacitance. This section includes a brief account of a theory of the operation of the rectifier. The second section describes the design of actual rectifiers for resistive or inductive loads and also a new method of design for battery-charging rectifiers, the mathematical theory of which is given in an appendix. A new method of construction is described which enables the output of a rectifier to be increased. In the final section, a description is given of some of the applications of the rectifier, including the use of oil-cooling for large outputs.