GMasterman wrote:

At a recent OTC show in Houston, SWACO, a oilfield services contractor, was
showing off a mud centrifuge with a unique drive system. It consisted of a
flywheel with rare earth magnets mounted on it and a solid copper flywheel
opposite it. The closer the rotating magnetic flywheel gets to the copper
flywheel, the more rotational energy is transfered. With the two flywheels
close together, both would spin at the same speed. As they were seperated the
driven flywheel would slow down, and with enough gap, completely stop. No
energy comsumed to operare as a variable speed tranny and clutch. Picture the
implications of this in the auto industry future. Never realized that a
magnetic field would affect copper. I'm talking about a 100hp(?)motor rotating
a 1000#(?) centrifuge bowl and rotor

Eddy currents in non-ferrous metals. Fun stuff.

Wanna baffle a lot of people? Drop a rare earth magnet down a piece of
aluminum pipe. Have them explain to you why it drops the way it does.

The same effect is used to damp oscillations on beam balances. The
faster the plate passes the magnet, the more resistance there is, and
there is no effect once the plate stops. Used on a lot of reloading
scales, among others.

Cheers
Trevor Jones