It could have gone either way; but what did happen next, is in my mind a fascinating case study on the value of scientific collaboration in the absence of a profit motive, combined with a remarkable leap of faith, to successfully overcome political, geographic, cultural and scientific challenges.

Late in 1984, the Concerted European Action on Magnets [CEAM] was born at a meeting in Brussels, the result of a unique coming together of the leaders of five European academic laboratories. This was a time before the fall of the Berlin Wall, before the Single European Act and before the European Union. It was a time when the bureaucrats of Europe were trying to find ways to help member countries work more closely together, as part of efforts to reduce mistrust and to achieve the objective of a more integrated pan-European economic system. This is a system that today most Europeans simply take for granted, but at the time, it was far from clear as to whether or not it would, or could, be achieved.

By the end of its remarkable eight year run, CEAM eventually produced over 1,000 research papers and well over a dozen patents as a result of the research of over 150 scientists, engineers and product designers, from 93 participating laboratories in 13 countries. Crucially, CEAM produced enduring relationships and collaborative efforts among key research groups within Europe, who to this day continue to work together in areas of magnetics research. Just as important, CEAM enabled the creation of a new generation of research scientists and engineers, whose Ph.D. studentships and activities were made possible in whole or in part by CEAM.

I put it to you that the CEAM approach is potentially an effective model for the creation of a framework for reviving rare earths research and development, and the subsequent “incubation” of new technical talent for this sector, in the USA, Canada, Europe and beyond. It is imperative that the Western rare earths supply chain [such as it exists today] realizes that its constituent members are part of a single international “ecosystem”, and that the most effective way to challenge the People’s Republic of China in this area, is to work together within a framework NOT motivated strictly by profit or limited by national borders.

To learn more about CEAM, why it was so successful, and the six steps that could be taken to apply the CEAM model to the revival of rare earths research and development in the West, you can download a copy of my new paper on the subject: “The Concerted European Action on Magnets: A Model for Facing the Rare Earths Challenge?” in PDF format.

Take a read, and let me know what you think by adding comments below.

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.

Joining the USMMA in this capacity are:

• Jack Lifton, of Jack Lifton LLC and The Jack Lifton Report, who is a well known commentator and consultant with over 47 years of experience in the field of rare earth, platinum group and other minor metals, with a wealth of knowledge on the mining, refining, production and end uses of these metals;
• Stan Trout, of Spontaneous Materials, who is a highly-respected permanent magnet materials consultant, and one of the best teachers on the subject of permanent magnets around today. Stan has over 30 years experience in a variety of roles within the permanent magnets industry;
• Tony Morcos, of ACM Magnetics, who has significant experience in the end use and design of applications that use permanent magnets and electromagnets, and brings a valuable, alternative perspective to the issues facing rare earth usage and design optimization.

Previous postings here at Terra Magnetica, have touched on the work of all three of these guys, and their combined talents and experience bring significant new “bench strength” to the USMMA. The additions are a pretty smart move as this organization and others, such as the Rare Earth Information and Technology Association [REITA], face the challenges and hurdles associated with getting a viable rare earth supply chain up and running in North America.

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.

In addition to Stan’s pre-conference workshop, there are a number of specific talks at this event of direct relevance to those with an interest in permanent magnets:

• Achieving Higher Power Density and Efficiency with Parallel Path Magnetic Technology – PJ Piper, QM Power Inc.
• High Performance Permanent Magnets for Motors and Generators – Peter Dent, Electron Energy Corp
• Stabilization and Calibration of Permanent Magnets – Steve Constantinides, Arnold Magnetic Technologies

I may well be attending this meeting, so do say hello if you are too…

Per the seminar’s program, “The global search for better energy efficiency in our daily lives is a constant demand from today’s markets. Advanced soft and hard magnetic materials offer the means to fulfil these demands, in markets as diverse as aerospace, automotive, installation technology and renewable energy. This seminar will highlight recent advances in material properties and processing technology, together with application based developments. For soft magnetic materials this will include a particular focus on crystalline CoFe, amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys, and for hard magnetic materials the focus will be on the sintered Nd-Fe-B and Sm-Co magnet compositions. Application areas could be in developing technologies such as hybrid electric vehicles, wind energy, electronic energy metering, sensors and the more electric aircraft“.

As a shameless plug, I should mention that I will be speaking at the event, on the second day, giving a presentation titled “Mechanical Applications of Permanent Magnets: Magnetic Couplings & Gears“.  I’m looking forward to hearing the other presentations and if you are anywhere near the area, I would heartily recommend attending the event, which will include a seminar dinner sponsored by Vac, and a plant tour of Vac’s facilities.  Heck – if you show up and mention this blog posting, I’ll even buy you a fine German beer – can’t say fairer than that!

Check out the seminar program here.