Magnetic Levitation

What is a magnet?
It is simply an object which produces a magnetic field North and South are the designations made to describe the two opposite poles North is attracted to South and repelled by North South is attracted to North and repelled by South There are three main types: - Permanent Magnets - Soft Magnets - Electromagnets

Electromagnets
The magnetic field is caused by the flow of an electric current The simplest example is a coiled piece of wire Using the right hand rule, it is possible to determine the direction An advantage over permanent magnets is that the magnetic field strength can be changed by changing the current

Superconductors
A superconductor is an element, inter-metallic alloy, or a compound that will conduct electricity without resistance below a certain temperature. Resistance produces losses in energy flowing through the material. In a closed loop, an electrical current will flow continuously in a superconducting material. Superconductors are not in widespread use due to the cold temperatures they must be kept at Highest Tc found 150K

Ways to magnetically levitate an object

Mechanical constraint Direct diamagnetic levitation Superconductors Diamagneticallystabilized levitation Rotational stabilization Servo stabilization Rotating conductors beneath magnets High-frequency oscillating electromagnetic fields Translational Halbach arrays and Inductrack

Direct Diamagnetic Levitation How it Works

Diamagnetic materials repel a magnetic field All materials have diamagnetic properties, but the effect is very weak, and usually overcome by the objects paramagnetic or ferromagnetic properties, which act in the opposite manner By surrounding a diamagnetic material with a magnetic field, it can be held in a stationary position (the magnetic force is strong enough to counteract gravity)

Direct Diamagnetic Levitation Applications

Water is primarily diamagnetic, so water droplets and objects that contain large amounts of water can be levitated

Applications
MagLev Trains- The magnetized coil running along the track, repels the large magnets on the train's undercarriage, allowing the train to levitate Biomagnetism- in MRI and SQUID (measures slight magnetic fields) Particle accelerators to accelerate sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light

applications
Electric generators- made with superconducting wire: They have a 99% efficiency and have about half the size of conventional generators. Really fast computers- Is "petaflop" computers. A petaflop is a thousandtrillion floating point operations per second. Today's fastest computing operations have only reached "teraflop" speeds.