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Scientists Accidentally Blow Up Their Lab With Strongest Indoor Magnetic Field Ever (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Earlier this year, researchers at the University of Tokyo accidentally created the strongest controllable magnetic field in history and blew the doors of their lab in the process. As detailed in a paper recently published in the Review of Scientific Instruments, the researchers produced the magnetic field to test the material properties of a new generator system. They were expecting to reach peak magnetic field intensities of around 700 Teslas, but the machine instead produced a peak of 1,200 Teslas. (For the sake of comparison, a refrigerator magnet has about 0.01 Tesla)
In both the Japanese and Russian experiments, the magnetic fields were generated using a technique called electromagnetic flux-compression. This technique causes a brief spike in the strength of the magnetic field by rapidly "squeezing" it to a smaller size. [...] Instead of using TNT to generate their magnetic field, the Japanese researchers dumped a massive amount of energy -- 3.2 megajoules -- into the generator to cause a weak magnetic field produced by a small coil to rapidly compress at a speed of about 20,000 miles per hour. This involves feeding 4 million amps of current through the generator, which is several thousand times more than a lightning bolt. When this coil is compressed as small as it will go, it bounces back. This produces a powerful shockwave that destroyed the coil and much of the generator. To protect themselves from the shockwave, the Japanese researchers built an iron cage for the generator. However they only built it to withstand about 700 Teslas, so the shockwave from the 1,200 Teslas ended up blowing out the door to the enclosure. While this is the strongest magnetic filed ever generated in a controlled, indoor environment, the strongest magnetic field produced in history belongs to some Russian researchers who created a 2,800 Tesla magnetic field in 2001.
In both the Japanese and Russian experiments, the magnetic fields were generated using a technique called electromagnetic flux-compression. This technique causes a brief spike in the strength of the magnetic field by rapidly "squeezing" it to a smaller size. [...] Instead of using TNT to generate their magnetic field, the Japanese researchers dumped a massive amount of energy -- 3.2 megajoules -- into the generator to cause a weak magnetic field produced by a small coil to rapidly compress at a speed of about 20,000 miles per hour. This involves feeding 4 million amps of current through the generator, which is several thousand times more than a lightning bolt. When this coil is compressed as small as it will go, it bounces back. This produces a powerful shockwave that destroyed the coil and much of the generator. To protect themselves from the shockwave, the Japanese researchers built an iron cage for the generator. However they only built it to withstand about 700 Teslas, so the shockwave from the 1,200 Teslas ended up blowing out the door to the enclosure. While this is the strongest magnetic filed ever generated in a controlled, indoor environment, the strongest magnetic field produced in history belongs to some Russian researchers who created a 2,800 Tesla magnetic field in 2001.
> accidentally created the strongest controllable magnetic field
Was it accidental or controllable? I feel like you can't have it both ways
Is anyone else confused why they built a cage to only withstand the exact scenario of an experiment?
I've heard engineers often tout a 10x safety limit, as in if you think something is only going to hold 100 lbs, you build it to hold 1,000.
Since they were doing something that hasn't been done, why would they only allow the safety system to only work if the results were exactly what they expected?
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
I love this ... the machine worked just fine, the containment is bashed to hell.
This is how science should work ... a successful test, some major carnage to show how cool your work is, and major bragging rights for how much of a "boom" you made.
And, from an article I saw earlier, while the Russian scientists did make the far larger magnetic field, they destroyed their gear in the process. In this case, the gear survived, but the containment was pretty much mangled, which does a really good job of the kind of forces they're working with.
Though, I still have to admire the Russian scientists for the very Russian science of using TNT .. what it lacks in finesse, it makes up for in sheer power and brute force. One has to admire that approach, it's just so much more fun.
Editing is important.
You must be new here!
(Seriously, that has to be one of the worst summaries I’ve read in quite a while)
#DeleteChrome
and the United States gets universal free healthcare and free university educations for everybody.
You don't actually believe either of those things would be 'free' do you? Someone, somewhere has to pay for them.
At least he's trying.
Which is the opposite of what you're doing. Trashing the most successful electric car company is not helping anybody other than people who are speculating on oceanfront property in north central Florida.