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Scientists of Samara University have developed and manufactured a unique industrial magnetic pulse unit for highly accurate and stable magnetization of rare-earth magnetoplastics, special powerful polymer–based magnets made from magnetic powder containing rare-earth metal.
Rare-earth magnets were developed back in the 70s of the twentieth century and are the most powerful type of permanent magnets, they create a stronger magnetic field than any other permanent magnets. The main distinguishing feature of rare-earth magnets is the high degree of accuracy and repeatability of their sizes, as well as the uniformity of magnetic characteristics. For their production, specialized equipment is needed, the range of which is not widely represented in our country.
"Scientists at the Scientific Research Laboratory for Advanced Technological Processes of Plastic Deformation (NIL-41) have developed, manufactured and commissioned a unique industrial magnetic pulse unit. It is designed for large-scale production of rare-earth magnetoplastics from the neodymium-iron-boron alloy (Nd-Fe-B). Such magnetic plastics are now widely used in various instrumentation, for example, in water meters, various sensors, and so on. A very promising area at present is the use of rare-earth magnetoplastics to create highly efficient electric motors for unmanned aerial vehicles. Thanks to multipole rare-earth magnetoplastics, the efficiency of electric motors increases to 90–94%, while electric motors with conventional magnets have an efficiency of about 77–82%. According to calculations, the use of magnetic plastics in the electric motor makes it possible to increase the range of the UAV by about 20–25%. In addition, electric motors based on magnetic plastics make significantly less noise during operation," said Dmitry Chernikov, scientific director of NIL-41 of Samara University.
The created unit is relatively compact, its dimensions are 600x600x800 mm. The task of the unit is to precisely magnetize the blanks of magnetic plastics. It is as if it puts into the future magnet its force of attraction. The unit generates magnetic pulses with precisely set parameters, and in millionths of a second the workpiece becomes a powerful magnet with strictly defined characteristics according to the technical specification.
"The basis of such magnetizing units is traditionally a high-voltage pulse current generator with a capacitive energy storage device. Unipolar current pulses with a given amplitude and duration are formed on the working solenoid for magnetization, which magnetize magnets and magnetic systems. A distinctive feature of the high-voltage generator in our unit is the use of new-generation gas thyratrons as powerful current switches in the reverse polarity current cut-off mode, as well as the use of pulsed capacitors with high specific energy. All this has made it possible to significantly improve the accuracy and stability of the magnetization process and increase the working life of the equipment," said Rinat Yusupov, unit developer, researcher at NIL-41 of Samara University.
The unit was commissioned by the Russian scientific production company "Valtar", a leading manufacturer of magnetic systems in Russia and the CIS countries. The equipment has already passed all the tests and has recently been put into commercial operation.
"It is safe to say that this unit is unique in its parameters and currently has no analogues either in Russia or abroad. Its characteristics are significantly higher than those of other similar equipment used for magnetization of magnetic plastics," said Aleksey Skuridin, Technical Director of Valtar.
According to the developers, completely new technical solutions were implemented during the creation of the unit, however, the detailed characteristics and parameters of the equipment were not disclosed due to trade secrets and know-how.
"Creating industrial equipment at the university is not an easy task. It is important that our magnetic pulse units are in demand by leading high-tech companies from various industries. Indeed, we have implemented completely new technical solutions in this unit, we have not done anything like this before. Of course, this is an important step for us, in fact, it is a new area that we will develop here. An agreement has already been reached on the development of a number of similar units of different energy intensity," Dmitry Chernikov said.
Photo by: Olesya Orina
