New Design Produces Extremely Powerful Magnet

The magnet produced by Engineers at Florida State University's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory has the capability of producing a magnetic field more than 25-30 Tesla, using an input lower than 28 MW direct current power.

Magnetism is a key component in a large number of modern technologies, including Magnetic Resonance Imaging and hard drives, and a useful tool in the study of different areas of physics. Named The Split Florida Helix, it is now under construction and is planed to be operational by 2010, giving researchers the possibility to direct or scatter laser light.

The newly designed magnet has a big hole in the middle, which will give them future access to the extreme forces exerted by the high magnetic fields produced. Scientists all over the world have been struggling for years to solve this problem, by accessing the magnet's middle section through small side access holes. Magnets are created from dense high performance copper alloys, and running electrical current through them to magnetize them, but creating an enormous hole in the magnet's center has always presented a huge engineering challenge.

The magnet will include four large scattering ports of elliptical shape at the mid-plane, resulting a unique design challenge especially severe for the windings in the mid-plane region of the inner coils.

The first model allowed a thermal-electrical analysis including the evaluation of the current distribution over the four ports at the middle. A second model including turn-to-turn stick-slip contact surface was used for a non-linear structural analysis the structural performance and the stability of the Magnet System.

The future Florida Helix magnet would prove to be suitable for a new type of neutron scattering device for experiments at 30T at a 30 degree angle, unavailable anywhere in the world at this moment.

NHMFL develops and operates high-magnetic-field facilities, used by faculties, visiting scientists and engineers use for research.