Development of industrial drives in the 1950s

At the beginning of the 1950s there was a great need to install new industrial plant to make up for losses that had occurred during the wartime years and also to exploit improved industrial processes that had been developed. Electronics had made a major contribution to the war effort and it was envisaged that electronic control could bring similar advantages to industry. This article reviews the developments in devices, circuits, power conversion equipment and control theory that resulted in electronic control of drives being widely accepted as the norm for many industrial applications by the end of the 1950s