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At least 163 records · Page 9

Investigation of immiscible systems and potential applications

The droplet coalescence kinetics at 0 g and 1 g were considered for two systems which contained liquid droplets in a host liquid. One of these (Al-In) typified a system containing a liquid phase miscibility gap and the order (oil-water) a mixture of two essentially insoluble liquids. A number of coalescence mechanisms potentially prominent at low g in this system were analyzed and explanations are presented for the observed unusual stability of the emulsion. Ground base experiments were conducted on the coalescence of In droplets in and Al-In alloy during cooling through the miscibility gap at different cooling rates. These were in qualitative agreement with the computer simulation. Potential applications for systems with liquid phase miscibility gaps were explored. Possibilities included superconductors, electrical contact materials, superplastic materials, catalysts, magnetic materials, and others. The role of space processing in their production was also analyzed.

Markworth, A. J.↗

Numerical methods for analyzing electromagnetic scattering

Attenuation properties of the normal modes in an overmoded waveguide coated with a lossy material were analyzed. It is found that the low-order modes, can be significantly attenuated even with a thin layer of coating if the coating material is not too lossy. A thinner layer of coating is required for large attenuation of the low-order modes if the coating material is magnetic rather than dielectric. The Radar Cross Section (RCS) from an uncoated circular guide terminated by a perfect electric conductor was calculated and compared with available experimental data. It is confirmed that the interior irradiation contributes to the RCS. The equivalent-current method based on the geometrical theory of diffraction (GTD) was chosen for the calculation of the contribution from the rim diffraction. The RCS reduction from a coated circular guide terminated by a PEC are planned schemes for the experiments are included. The waveguide coated with a lossy magnetic material is suggested as a substitute for the corrugated waveguide.

Lee, S. W.↗

Finite element modelling of non-linear magnetic circuits using Cosmic NASTRAN

The general purpose Finite Element Program COSMIC NASTRAN currently has the ability to model magnetic circuits with constant permeablilities. An approach was developed which, through small modifications to the program, allows modelling of non-linear magnetic devices including soft magnetic materials, permanent magnets and coils. Use of the NASTRAN code resulted in output which can be used for subsequent mechanical analysis using a variation of the same computer model. Test problems were found to produce theoretically verifiable results.

Sheerer, T. J.↗

An LQR controller design approach for a Large Gap Magnetic Suspension System (LGMSS)

Two control approaches for a Large Gap Magnetic Suspension System (LGMSS) are investigated and numerical results are presented. The approaches are based on Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) control theory and include a nonzero set point regulator with constant disturbance input and an integral feedback regulator. The LGMSS provides five degree of freedom control of a cylindrical suspended element which is composed of permanent magnet material. The magnetic actuators are air core electromagnets mounted in a planar way.

Groom, Nelson J.↗

Large gap magnetic suspension system

The design of a large gap magnetic suspension system is discussed. Some of the topics covered include: the system configuration, permanent magnet material, levitation magnet system, superconducting magnets, resistive magnets, superconducting levitation coils, resistive levitation coils, levitation magnet system, and the nitrogen cooled magnet system.

Abdelsalam, Moustafa K.↗

Open-loop characteristics of magnetic suspension systems using electromagnets mounted in a planar array

The open-loop characteristics of a Large-Gap Magnetic Suspension System (LGMSS) were studied and numerical results are presented. The LGMSS considered provides five-degree-of-freedom control. The suspended element is a cylinder that contains a core composed of permanent magnet material. The magnetic actuators are air core electromagnets mounted in a planar array. Configurations utilizing five, six, seven, and eight electromagnets were investigated and all configurations were found to be controllable from coil currents and observable from suspended element positions. Results indicate that increasing the number of coils has an insignificant effect on mode shapes and frequencies.

Groom, Nelson J.↗

Advanced Electrical Materials and Component Development

The primary means to develop advanced electrical components is to develop new and improved materials for magnetic components (transformers, inductors, etc.), capacitors, and semiconductor switches and diodes. This paper will give a description and status of the internal and external research sponsored by NASA Glenn Research Center on soft magnetic materials, dielectric materials and capacitors, and high quality silicon carbide (SiC) atomically smooth substrates. The rationale for and the benefits of developing advanced electrical materials and components for the PMAD subsystem and also for the total power system will be briefly discussed.

Schwarze, Gene E.↗

Advanced Electrical Materials and Components Development: An Update

The primary means to develop advanced electrical components is to develop new and improved materials for magnetic components (transformers, inductors, etc.), capacitors, and semiconductor switches and diodes. This paper will give an update of the Advanced Power Electronics and Components Technology being developed by the NASA Glenn Research Center for use in future Power Management and Distribution subsystems used in space power systems for spacecraft and lunar and planetary surface power. The initial description and status of this technology program was presented two years ago at the First International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference held at Portsmouth, Virginia, August 2003. The present paper will give a brief background of the previous work reported and a summary of research performed the past several years on soft magnetic materials characterization, dielectric materials and capacitor developments, high quality silicon carbide atomically smooth substrates, and SiC static and dynamic device characterization under elevated temperature conditions. The rationale for and the benefits of developing advanced electrical materials and components for the PMAD subsystem and also for the total power system will also be briefly discussed.

Schwarze, Gene E.↗

Method for forming a nitrogenation barrier and machine formed using a body having the nitrogenation barrier

A method includes forming one or more oxide barrier layers on one or more protected portions of a magnetic, metallic body, and converting one or more unprotected portions of the magnetic, metallic body to a less magnetic material by exposing the magnetic metallic body having the one or more oxide barrier layers formed thereon to nitrogen. One or more protected portions of the magnetic, metallic body that are beneath the one or more oxide barrier layers are not converted to the less magnetic material. The method can be used to form one or more layers of a laminated electric motor.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Computational Analysis of Static and Dynamic Behaviour of Magnetic Suspensions and Magnetic Bearings

Static modelling of magnetic bearings is often carried out using magnetic circuit theory. This theory cannot easily include nonlinear effects such as magnetic saturation or the fringing of flux in air-gaps. Modern computational tools are able to accurately model complex magnetic bearing geometries, provided some care is exercised. In magnetic suspension applications, the magnetic fields are highly three-dimensional and require computational tools for the solution of most problems of interest. The dynamics of a magnetic bearing or magnetic suspension system can be strongly affected by eddy currents. Eddy currents are present whenever a time-varying magnetic flux penetrates a conducting medium. The direction of flow of the eddy current is such as to reduce the rate-of-change of flux. Analytic solutions for eddy currents are available for some simplified geometries, but complex geometries must be solved by computation. It is only in recent years that such computations have been considered truly practical. At NASA Langley Research Center, state-of-the-art finite-element computer codes, 'OPERA', 'TOSCA' and 'ELEKTRA' have recently been installed and applied to the magnetostatic and eddy current problems. This paper reviews results of theoretical analyses which suggest general forms of mathematical models for eddy currents, together with computational results. A simplified circuit-based eddy current model proposed appears to predict the observed trends in the case of large eddy current circuits in conducting non-magnetic material. A much more difficult case is seen to be that of eddy currents in magnetic material, or in non-magnetic material at higher frequencies, due to the lower skin depths. Even here, the dissipative behavior has been shown to yield at least somewhat to linear modelling. Magnetostatic and eddy current computations have been carried out relating to the Annular Suspension and Pointing System, a prototype for a space payload pointing and vibration isolation system, where the magnetic actuator geometry resembles a conventional magnetic bearing. Magnetostatic computations provide estimates of flux density within airgaps and the iron core material, fringing at the pole faces and the net force generated. Eddy current computations provide coil inductance, power dissipation and the phase lag in the magnetic field, all as functions of excitation frequency. Here, the dynamics of the magnetic bearings, notably the rise time of forces with changing currents, are found to be very strongly affected by eddy currents, even at quite low frequencies. Results are also compared to experimental measurements of the performance of a large-gap magnetic suspension system, the Large Angle Magnetic Suspension Test Fixture (LAMSTF). Eddy current effects are again shown to significantly affect the dynamics of the system. Some consideration is given to the ease and accuracy of computation, specifically relating to OPERA/TOSCA/ELEKTRA.

Britcher, Colin P.↗

Cubic double perovskites host noncoplanar spin textures

Magnetic materials with noncoplanar magnetic structures can show unusual physical properties driven by nontrivial topology. Topologically-active states are often multi-q structures, which are challenging to stabilize in models and to identify in materials. Here, we use inelastic neutron-scattering experiments to show that the insulating double perovskites Ba 2 YRuO 6 and Ba 2 LuRuO 6 host a noncoplanar 3-q structure on the face-centered cubic lattice. Quantitative analysis of our neutron-scattering data reveals that these 3-q states are stabilized by biquadratic interactions. Our study identifies double perovskites as a highly promising class of materials to realize topological magnetism, elucidates the stabilization mechanism of the 3-q state in these materials, and establishes neutron spectroscopy on powder samples as a valuable technique to distinguish multi-q from single-q states, facilitating the discovery of topologically-nontrivial magnetic materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Amorphous Metal Ribbon (AMR) and Metal Amorphous Nanocomposite (MANC) Materials Enabled High Power Density Vehicle Motor Applications (Final Technical Report)

A collaborative team from Carnegie Mellon Univ. (CMU), North Carolina State Univ. (NCSU) and Metglas, South Carolina have studied new high speed motors (HSMs) with high-power density for traction motor applications. These are enabled by hybrid designs, including Flux Switching with Permanent Magnets (FSWPM) motors, exploiting permanent magnets without heavy rare earths (RE-lean) and high induction/high resistivity soft magnetic materials that allow for high switching frequencies needed to increase power densities. Team members include Michael E. McHenry, Prof. Materials Science & Eng., CMU, with > 30 years experience in magnetic materials development; Subashish Bhattacharya, Prof. Electrical Eng. and Freedom Center Director at NCSU with > 30 years experience in development of power electronic components and systems and Eric Theisen, Director of Research at Metglas, the only US located supplier of AMR and MANC materials. The team offers novel axial motor architectures exploiting soft magnetic materials (SMMs) that switch with low loss at high frequencies and heavy rare earth free permanent magnets that address materials criticality issues, supply chain risks, and high costs for traction motors. Axial-flux permanent magnet motors (APFM), offer efficiency improvements reducing rotor losses and also significantly higher power density. Axial-flux construction requires less core material, high torque-to-weight ratio. Since AFPM machines have thin magnets, they are smaller than radial flux motors making them attractive in space-limited applications. Noise and vibration are less and planar air gaps are easily adjusted. Flexibility in air-gap direction allows many topologies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Lightning current detector

An apparatus for measuring the intensity of current produced in an elongated electrical conductive member by a lightning strike for determining the intensity of the lightning strike is presented. The apparatus includes an elongated strip of magnetic material that is carried within an elongated tubular housing. A predetermined electrical signal is recorded along the length of said elongated strip of magnetic material. One end of the magnetic material is positioned closely adjacent to the electrically conductive member so that the magnetic field produced by current flowing through said electrically conductive member disturbs a portion of the recorded electrical signal directly proportional to the intensity of the lightning strike.

Livermore, S. F.↗

100th Anniversary of the discovery of Ferroelectricity: How did it impact the Current Day Physics

Ferroelectric phenomenon in materials was identified for the first time about 100 years ago in 1920 (paper presented at the American Physical Society (APS) Meeting in Washington, DC, April 1920), at the University of Minnesota, MN, USA; by then a graduate student Joseph Valasek working under the supervision of Prof. W. F. G. Swann. Before this announcement, some prominent physicists had envisaged and even predicted the possibility of an analogous electrical behavior in some materials to that of the well-established hysteresis behavior of magnetic materials. Debye’s work tried to put the concept of Curie temperature in some solids in 1912 but it Schrodinger in the same year who formalized the term ferroelectricity. The names ferroelectrics, ferroelectricity, etc. are fully symbolic of the hysteresis loop-like behavior originally displayed by the magnetic materials. Later on when the physics of ferroelectrics was formalized, most of the terminology, e.g. Curie constant, Curie temperature, etc. that characterized the hysteresis loop or its related characteristics, was inherited from the magnetic materials. Over the years basic ferroelectricity concepts were significantly developed. The observed ferroelectric hysteresis loop between electric polarization vs applied electric field in the then well-known material, Rochelle salt, was presented at the April meeting of the APS, held at, then known as, the National Bureau of Standards or NBS (currently known as the National Institute for Standards and Technology or NIST). Interestingly, even though Valasek submitted the abstract but it was presented by Swann (and Valasek was not present). It happened to be a unique case of the earlier predictions but it did not catch the attention of many researchers working in the field of electronics. Whatever the reason, there was a little attention paid to this newly identified effect in Rochelle salt in 1920s. In late 1920, Valasek’s paper was submitted to Physical Review and that appeared in April 1921. Both ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism are the observational or experimental characteristics of a special class of materials which were not predicted by any basic theoretical approaches to start with at that time.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Effects of finite material size on axion-magnon conversion

Magnetic materials are particularly favorable targets for detecting axions interacting with electrons because the collective excitation of electron spins, the magnon, can be excited through the axion-magnon conversion process. It is often assumed that only the zero-momentum uniformly precessing magnetostatic (Kittel) mode of the magnon is excited. This is justified if the de Broglie wavelength of the axion is much longer than the size of the target magnetic material. However, if the de Broglie wavelength is shorter, finite-momentum magnon modes can also be excited. We systematically analyze the target material size dependence of the axion-magnon conversion rate. We discuss the importance of these effects in the detection of relativistic axions as well as in the detection of axion dark matter of relatively heavy mass with large material size.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Cobalt ferrite based magnetostrictive materials for magnetic stress sensor and actuator applications

Magnetostrictive material based on cobalt ferrite is described. The cobalt ferrite is substituted with transition metals (such manganese (Mn), chromium (Cr), zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) or mixtures thereof) by substituting the transition metals for iron or cobalt to form substituted cobalt ferrite that provides mechanical properties that make the substituted cobalt ferrite material effective for use as sensors and actuators. The substitution of transition metals lowers the Curie temperature of the material (as compared to cobalt ferrite) while maintaining a suitable magnetostriction for stress sensing applications.

Jiles, David C.↗

Toroidal-Core Microinductors Biased by Permanent Magnets

The designs of microscopic toroidal-core inductors in integrated circuits of DC-to-DC voltage converters would be modified, according to a proposal, by filling the gaps in the cores with permanent magnets that would apply bias fluxes (see figure). The magnitudes and polarities of the bias fluxes would be tailored to counteract the DC fluxes generated by the DC components of the currents in the inductor windings, such that it would be possible to either reduce the sizes of the cores or increase the AC components of the currents in the cores without incurring adverse effects. Reducing the sizes of the cores could save significant amounts of space on integrated circuits because relative to other integrated-circuit components, microinductors occupy large areas - of the order of a square millimeter each. An important consideration in the design of such an inductor is preventing magnetic saturation of the core at current levels up to the maximum anticipated operating current. The requirement to prevent saturation, as well as other requirements and constraints upon the design of the core are expressed by several equations based on the traditional magnetic-circuit approximation. The equations involve the core and gap dimensions and the magnetic-property parameters of the core and magnet materials. The equations show that, other things remaining equal, as the maximum current is increased, one must increase the size of the core to prevent the flux density from rising to the saturation level. By using a permanent bias flux to oppose the flux generated by the DC component of the current, one would reduce the net DC component of flux in the core, making it possible to reduce the core size needed to prevent the total flux density (sum of DC and AC components) from rising to the saturation level. Alternatively, one could take advantage of the reduction of the net DC component of flux by increasing the allowable AC component of flux and the corresponding AC component of current. In either case, permanent-magnet material and the slant (if any) and thickness of the gap must be chosen according to the equations to obtain the required bias flux. In modifying the design of the inductor, one must ensure that the inductance is not altered. The simplest way to preserve the original value of inductance would be to leave the gap dimensions unchanged and fill the gap with a permanent- magnet material that, fortuitously, would produce just the required bias flux. A more generally applicable alternative would be to partly fill either the original gap or a slightly enlarged gap with a suitable permanent-magnet material (thereby leaving a small residual gap) so that the reluctance of the resulting magnetic circuit would yield the desired inductance.

Lieneweg, Udo↗

Modeling and Measuring the Stress Distribution in Soft Magnetic Cores due to Epoxy Impregnation and Curing

Understanding the effects of viscoelastic relaxation of stresses is critical in electric motor and inductor applications, where the magnetic material is fully or partially comprised of an amorphous phase and impregnated in an epoxy. Magnetic Amorphous Nanocomposites (MANCs) are a class of recently developed high-frequency magnetic materials that exhibit low magnetic hysteresis, high saturation flux density and very low AC magnetic losses. MANCs are formed as long, thin ribbons, a shape factor that minimizes eddy current-induced self-heating. This feature, in addition to their 1 GPa strength, and makes them attractive candidates for high-speed, high-power density, electric motors. MANCs are used in the form of tape-wound cores (TWCs). During the manufacturing process, the cores are impregnated with liquid epoxy between each layer of ribbon. Validated knowledge of the stresses imposed by the manufacturing process and during operation is necessary to understand motor performance limitations with respect to strength. Magnetostriction, the strain imposed by reversal of the magnetic field, also affects performance. When the epoxy cures, it contracts volumetrically by 8%, imposing radial and circumferential stresses that vary along the radial direction. To date, these stresses have received little attention in the literature. Here, we model the stress distribution throughout a TWC due to epoxy curing. Strain gauge measurements reported here indicate substantially lower tangential strain than model values, which is beneficial and which we attribute to viscoelastic relaxation of the epoxy layers. We will incorporate a constitutive model of this viscoelastic relaxation, and conduct more detailed strain measurements to understand how this takes

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗