1. Magnetic Field, 01/19/2016
“Komivi Akengue, Sergey Ovcharenko”
Problem Definition
Statement
When the astronauts go out to space they get influenced by the sun
radiation. Though today’s spacecraft are covered with a protective
material, they deflect only 93% of the radiation. We are attempting to
create a magnetic field that will protect people in space from radiation.
Scope
By the end of spring we will finalize our research, design, and will
proceed to building a prototype.
Schedule
Winter 2016: identify the materials and equipment we need to build an
inductor using a super conductor.
Spring 2016: Identify the price of building a prototype. Modify inductor
and start working on building a complete prototype(If price allows).
Resources
Online research
Electrical component store
Instructors’ advice
Time, time, time!
Competitive Analysis
Protect people from radiation in space
Magnetic fields can be used in motors of electric cars
Information storage
Magnetic levitation
Solution Specifications
• Solution Block Diagram
• Operation Description
For this project the ideal material to use as a superconductor would be a
MgB2 in a Titanium cover.
We will decrease the temperature of that wire by placing it into liquid
nitrogen. That will cool off the superconductor down to 74K.
After that, we will connect one end of the super conductive wire to power
supply and the other one to the ground.
After connection is done, we will send current through the wire and
measure the generated magnetic field using Hall effect device.
For this method we will place the wire as its shown on the diagram below:
After that, we will conduct the same experiment with Amperium copper-
laminated wire.
We will record data from both experiments and compare them to identify
where we get the best results.
After that, we will build our first tokomak with wiring.
Then we will conduct the same experiment to identify if our composition
works and how effective it works.
A the same time we will do calculations to identify % error using the
formula below:
%error will help us determine where problem is.
• Component Specifications
-MgB2-supper conductor. Operates in high fields of 7 to 20 Teslas.
-Liquid Nitrogen- need to cool off the superconductive wire to low
temperature(approximately 74K)
-Hall effect sensor-need to measure magnetic field’s strength
-Power supply
Potential Applications
At this point we have several superconductors that we could possibly
go with. :
-MgB2 is capable of holding need amperage, cheap to produce, and
simple to make. However, the main disadvantage of Mg-di-B is the
critical temperature of operations (27 K).
-Other possible superconductive wire to be used is Amperium
copper-laminated wire. This product provides significant power
throughput and efficiency as well as high strength and stability with
outstanding bend tolerance.
Engineering & Computer Science Departments
Future Improvement Ideas
Tokamak needs very strong toroidal fields and the
strong currents flowing through the magnetic coils
generate a lot of heat. In order to use a
superconductor efficiently we have to design a
cooling system to cool dawn the wiring.