Since then, I’ve had the chance to play with a number of their prototypes.  I had initially been a little confused as to what the technology was all about, but having a chance to play with the different configurations gave me a better feel.  In addition, earlier this week, Design World magazine published an article with an update on the correlated magnetics technology, with a couple of videos. I had some difficulties getting the first video to play, but the second gives a good overview of the products and how they work.

As the Design World article says:

You can program, or code, the behavior of complementary magnetic structures by varying the polarity (and optionally the field strengths) of each source of the arrays of magnetic sources making up each structure. This capability, along with a cost-effective manufacturing capability, provides a multi-dimensional framework for design and development of magnets having unique spatial force functions that meet specific alignment, coupling, and release criteria.

Check out the new article today. I am told that a team from Correlated will be attending the Magnetics 2010 Conference in Florida, and will be bringing a bunch of prototypes with them.  If you’re attending the meeting, take the chance to have a play with these magnets.

Disclosures: none.

The device is actually an upgrade to an existing electromagnet, and uses a special coil design called a Bitter solenoid, in order to generate the intense magnetic field. This design, first invented by Prof. Francis Bitter while working at MIT prior to World War Two, consists of stacks of copper plates, instead of wire coils, in order to carry the massive currents that are required for the electromagnet. The working inner bore of the new magnet is approximately 32 mm [1.25 inches] in diameter.

The increment from 35 T to 36 T came from creating a new arrangement of the copper plates in the Bitter solenoid. The researchers at the NHMFL plan to apply this new arrangement and upgrade the rest of the electromagnets at the lab, in order to increase the overall magnetic output of each. As an added bonus, according to laboratory:

[t]his cost-neutral modification means a higher magnetic field can be created using the same amount of power, 20 megawatts. By comparison, the magnet at the Grenoble High Magnetic Field Laboratory achieves its 35 tesla using 22.5 megawatts of power.

Frog levitating in a 16 T resistive electromagnet (image courtesy of High Field Magnet Laboratory, Radboud University Nijmegen 2005)

To put this into context, 20 megawatts of electricity is enough electricity to power around 6,000-7,000 average American homes. A 2.5 MW saving in electricity [equivalent to the power produced by a commercial scale wind turbine these days], for the same magnetic output, is therefore pretty significant.  During a visit to the NHMFL a few years ago, I was told that the laboratory is required to give plenty of notice to the local municipality in Tallahassee before switching on their electromagnets, because of the massive current draw on the local grid that they cause.

It was in a very high field electromagnet of this type, that the famous picture of the floating frog shown here, was taken some years ago. The strong diamagnetic effect of the electromagnet, on the water molecules in the frog’s body, is enough to counter the effects of gravity.  When not levitating amphibians and other objects, researchers use these types of very strong electromagnets for physics and materials science research.

A team of researchers at Purdue University, led by Professor Babek Ziaie placed a mixture of mineral oil and iron oxide nano-particle onto some ordinary paper. Once impregnated, the thin “scaffold” could be manipulated by using an external magnetic field.

Depending on the properties of the iron oxide particles used, which are around 10 nm in diameter, this “ferropaper” as they’re calling it, could be a cheap way of making soft magnetic laminations for motors and other applications.

The article talks about other applications such as “small stereo speakers, miniature robots or motors for a variety of potential applications, including tweezers to manipulate cells and flexible fingers for minimally invasive surgery.” Although this ferropaper reacts to magnetic fields, this is not the same as being a permanent magnet, so it remains to be seen just how complex one might be able to get, with relevant applications.

Still, the technique might lead to some cheap and easy fabrication techniques for a variety of applications that could make use of such a material.

From R & D magazine:

The researchers fashioned the material into a small cantilever, a structure resembling a diving board that can be moved or caused to vibrate by applying a magnetic field.

“Cantilever actuators are very common, but usually they are made from silicon, which is expensive and requires special cleanroom facilities to manufacture,” Ziaie said. “So using the ferropaper could be a very inexpensive, simple alternative. This is like 100 times cheaper than the silicon devices now available.”

The researchers also have experimented with other shapes and structures resembling [o]rigami to study more complicated movements.

Magnetic origami – sounds pretty cool to me!

The tool was developed by the magnetics engineering group at Dexter, specifically by a team led by my colleague Chris Ras, Dexter’s Product Development Manager, and with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).  The tool, shown in Figure 1, is approximately 67 inches (170 cm)  long and provides over 200 watts of high density electrical power at a regulated 24 VDC, for a variety of downhole drilling, measurement and logging systems, in environments up to 250 °C (480 °F) of temperature and greater than 20,000 psi (140 kPa) of pressure.  As we drill ever-deeper into the earth,  the temperature and pressure inside the resulting wells generally increase with depth.

This type of turbine generator works by drawing energy from the drilling fluid that is pumped down under pressure from the surface, which is used to lubricate the drill bit and to remove the rock cuttings as drilling proceeds. This fluid passes through a set of turbine blades in the generator tool [shown in the cutaway schematic in Figure 2], which connects with a special permanent magnet generator that then generates power.

The new generator system can replace disposable lithium and rechargeable lithium ion batteries, which are commonly used in these systems.  Because these batteries do not operate above 200 °C (390 °F), they limiting the cycle time and depth of drilling for systems that use them.  Using the turbine generator means that in addition to oil & gas well drilling, the tool could also have applications for geothermal drilling, which can experience even more demanding conditions.

My colleague Tim Price, Dexter’s Business Development Manager for the oil & gas industry, said:

“The development of HPHT measurement and logging tools has outpaced the availability of safe and reliable HPHT power supplies. Dexter’s HPHT downhole generator was developed specifically to fill that void. We have a downhole power supply that provides regulated power from subzero surface temperatures to 250 °C (480 °F) bottom hole formation temperatures. No other single commercially-available technology can provide power over that operating range as of this date.”

Tim went on to say that:

“The need for such HPHT power supplies appears to be greater now more than ever, with the high temperature, extended reach horizontal drilling experienced in plays such as the Haynesville Shale.”

Performance data on the HPHT downhole generator products can be acquired directly from Courtney Stone, Marketing Manager at Dexter, or from me.  We are now actively looking for partners in the well drilling industry, to participate in field trials and qualification of the new HPHT downhole generator tool, in wells with formation temperatures expected to exceed 175 °C (350 °F).

Get in touch with me if that describes you or your company!

Flywheels work on the basis of imparting energy into a rapidly rotating mass, which can then be tapped for later use.  They are a well-established method of providing back up power for commercial power utilities, and more recently, they have started to see use in regenerative braking applications for vehicles, where the energy from braking is transferred into a flywheel [instead of the alternative electrical generator approach].

It is to this latter application that the Kinergy is apparently being applied.  In Figure 1 we can see a cutaway model showing the insides of the device. The blue-and-yellow components represent the magnetic gear system.

The Ricardo Web site says that:

[t]he range of potential Kinergy applications is significant not least due to its comparatively very low projected production costs. The technology is thus ideally suited for use in road vehicles where regenerative braking and torque assist is employed as a means of improving efficiency and hence reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Such potential applications range from small, price-sensitive mass-market passenger cars to large luxury SUVs, buses and trucks. Across all of these vehicle categories, Kinergy offers the prospect of enabling effective hybridisation extending into market sectors where the use of conventional electro-chemical battery systems technology would be prohibitively expensive.

They go on to say that:

Further potential Kinergy applications also include low-cost, compact energy management and storage systems for use in industrial and construction equipment, elevators, railway rolling stock, and local electrical substations and power distribution systems.

Magnetic gears of this type are relatively new, and there are not too many commercialized applications for them as yet. The systems generally consist of three concentric sub-systems which allow for the conversion of speed into torque and vice versa, without contact between the sub-systems.  They can also be combined with electrical motors and generators to form some very interesting electrical machines.

Ricardo says in the excerpts above that they anticipate “very low projected production costs“. Magnetic gears are not cheap to build, because of the labour involved, so one would have to surmise from this statement that in relation to the system as a whole, the gear sub-system is not a major cost driver. Certainly there are some significant advantages to magnetic gears over and above mechanical gears, to make them worth considering.

Ricardo is working on the use of the Kinergy concept in a demonstrator FLYBUS vehicle based on an Optare Solo bus, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. FLYBUS demonstration concept, using the Ricardo Kinergy flywheel system. Courtesy of Ricardo (2009)

I’ll be posting more on magnetic gears in the near future, and I will be presenting a review of magnetic gears and related electrical machines at the Magnetics 2010 conference in Florida, next January. In the meantime, you can read the rest of the article on Kinergy here.

The Times Online has just published a story on a technology that apparently “has the potential to revolutionise the renewable energy industry by making wind power cheaper and more reliable and greatly increasing the efficiency of wind turbines for electricity companies.”

The driver behind the work, conducted by Dr Markus Mueller and Dr. Alasdair McDonald of the University of Edinburgh’s Institute of Energy Systems, is the goal of effectively eliminating the gearbox from off-shore wind turbines. Being able to achieve this would increase reliability and reduce maintenance costs, given that off-shore wind turbines are out at sea.

The researchers claim to have been able to reduce the weight of conventional direct-drive generators by up to a half, and have developed a system that is apparently simpler to assembly and manufacture. Unfortunately at this point, there appears to be little in the public domain on the new technology. I was able to find a paper presented at the 2008 European Wind Energy Conference that looks to describe the technology.

Based on this paper, it appear that the NGenTec [not "NGenTech" as originally reported by the Times] technology involves the use of a “C” shaped core generator [see Figure 1] which, according to a University of Edinburgh press release sent out on Nov 23, 2009, they’re calling C-GEN. The team used it to build a 20 kW, 100 rpm prototype. They were able to show that changing the mechanical structure of the generator led to reduce required mass while maintain rigidity and structural integrity. Building on the initial concept, the team were able to show that a generator capable of producing 100 kW, based on this design, would have a total mass of approximately 2,800 kg (6,170 lb) – less than half the 6,600 kg (14,550 lb) mass of the NorthWind 100 commercially-available wind turbine generator, which also produces 100 kW of power.

Figure 1: a) schematic of a conventional permanent magnet, radial flux generator, and b) the NGenTech C core machine. From Mueller & McDonald (2008).

Dr. Mueller and Dr. McDonald have on the last couple of weeks formed a new company to market the device, called. The new company is chaired by Mr. Derek Shepherd, “a former managing director of Aggreko International, a Glasgow-based supplier of mainly diesel-fuelled generators.“

The Times article goes on to say that:

Derek Douglas, an entrepreneur specialising in raising finance for start-up companies, has joined NGenTech [sic] with the aim of raising £4 million to prove that a 6MW generator would work and then a further £10 million to set up an assembly and manufacturing operation.

Mr Douglas goes on to say that the technology has applications for both on- and off-shore systems. This makes sense, although there isn’t necessarily the same cost premium associated with maintenance on-shore, as there is for off-shore installations.

At the moment, NGenTech does not appear to have a Web site up and running yet. NGenTec does have a Web site, and  the Institute for Energy Systems also has an extensive Web site. It shows that this group is doing extensive work in the arena of generators and electrical machines for a variety of renewable energy systems, including wind turbines, wave energy convertors, tidal current systems and the like.

From the NGenTec site:

The Company is presently raising its first round of funding of £4 million. This will enable us to develop, manufacture and build a 1 MW modular unit over the next 12 months. This 1MW modular unit will be specifically designed to form part of a 6MW generator we plan to manufacture and test the following year.

According to the University’s press release, the new company was spun out of the University by Edinburgh Research and Innovation (ERI), the University’s successful research and commercialisation arm, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this month. The University retains a minority stake in the new business.

The initial proof of concept work was funded by Scottish Enterprise.

I’m looking forward to seeing how these chaps progress with this project. You can read the original Times Online article here, incorrect spellings and all…

Oct. 27, 2009 – by Tracey Bryant – The University of Delaware has won a $4.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) to lead a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research project to develop the next generation of high-performance permanent magnets.

Stronger magnets are essential for increasing the energy efficiency of electronics, automobiles, information technology, and communications systems in the 21st-century, and for supporting the development of hybrid/electric vehicles, wind turbines, environmentally friendly transportation systems, and new energy storage systems, among other applications.

The UD project is one of 37 selected nationwide by the agency, collectively totaling $151 million, which “have great potential to revolutionize the U.S. energy sector,” according to Shane Kosinski, ARPA-E’s acting deputy director. They represent the first round of projects funded under ARPA-E, which is receiving $400 million to deploy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

George Hadjipanayis, the Richard B. Murray Professor of Physics and chairperson of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware, is the principal investigator on the project. He will coordinate a team of chemists, material scientists, physicists, and engineers from the University of Delaware, University of Nebraska, Northeastern University, and Virginia Commonwealth University; the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University, in Ames, Iowa; and the Electron Energy Corporation in Landisville, Pa.

According to Hadjipanayis, the strongest permanent magnets today are made from an alloy of three elements: neodymium (Nd), iron (Fe), and boron (B). Hadjipanayis was one of the three researchers who discovered the Nd-Fe-B magnets in the early 1980s.

In the new project, he and his team will be working to identify new materials that will result in magnets twice as strong as those currently in existence.

“This is the first time that such a large concerted effort will be undertaken in the U.S. on the development of high-energy magnets that involves the best expertise available in our country on this type of materials,” Hadjipanayis said.

An article in the Sept. 11, 2009, edition of the journal Science reported that the demand for Nd-Fe-B magnets is growing at about 15 percent per year, for use in products ranging from magnetic resonance imaging machines, to cell phones, headphones, and even prototype magnetic refrigerators. Yet neodymium (Nd), which is a member of the rare earth metals on the periodic table of the elements, is growing increasingly scarce.

The UD-led team will explore three different routes over the three-year project, Hadjipanayis said. The first route will be to discover new materials in tertiary rare earth-transition metal-element X systems that have not yet been explored due to synthesis difficulties such as vapor pressure, high reactivity, toxicity, or their refractory nature. The second route will be to develop materials that are free of rare earth metals and stabilized by the addition of small non-magnetic atoms (Fe-Co-X); and the third route will be to use the bottom-up approach to develop high-energy nanocomposite materials consisting of a uniform and nanoscale mixture of high anisotropy hard (Nd-Fe-B) and high magnetization soft (Fe) magnetic phases.

“We hope our efforts will provide the fundamental innovations and breakthroughs which could have a major impact in re-establishing the United States as a leader in the science, technology, and commercialization of this very important class of materials,” Hadjipanayis said.

More than 3,600 concept papers were received in response to the first ARPA-E solicitation, from which the U.S. Department of Energy requested 300 full applications and ultimately selected 37 based on rigorous review and evaluation.

Funding for the projects is provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also known as the federal stimulus package, which was enacted by Congress earlier this year.

The place? Denmark… home of wind turbines, pickled herring and Kierkegaard. Not the first place you might expect the Prius and Roadster to come together, but the Fates must have had their reasons.

Steen Joregensen’s friend had had his brand spanking new Tesla Roadster for the sum total of 14 days, with 400 miles on the clock.  Being the kind soul that he was, Steen’s friend let him take it for a spin.  As he waited at a red stop light due to construction on the highway, out of nowhere came the Toyota Prius.  Before he knew it…

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

There was a reasonable wind blowing at the time of my visit and the turbines were moving at around 15-18 RPM.  Standing directly under the blades I could certainly hear them moving, but it wasn’t as loud as I had expected, and after moving just 50-100 yards away the sound diminished significantly.

The University also has a mast close to these turbines in order to measure wind speeds at different heights above the ground, as part of their research into efficiency of production.

Here are some photos…

According to the CMR Web site, “Recent pioneering innovations involving magnetic structures having designs based on signal correlation and coding theory enable magnetic forces to be precisely controlled to achieve desired alignment, coupling force, and release force characteristics, and to produce unique magnetic identities to control how these magnetic structures interact.    These new structures are referred to as Correlated Magnets and Coded Magnets™.   Coded Magnets are programmed so that they have multiple polarities that correspond to magnetic identities that determine how they interact with other correlated magnets”.  Fig. 1 depicts a magnetic field scan of a Coded Magnet programmed using a particular configuration, which CMR calls Code A.

The CMR web site goes on to say that “Coded Magnets having complementary coding have one spatial alignment where each magnetic source, or maxel, of each magnet is aligned with a complementary magnetic source from the other magnet. When complementary Coded Magnets are aligned, all the maxel pairs produce a peak attractive force. For all other translational or rotational alignments, the maxels cancel each other out. The forces produced between two complementary Coded Magnets vary based on their spatial alignment.”

Sounds very intriguing and definitely worth checking out.