Since the advent of the industrial age man has been on a relentless run of progress. He has undertaken daring projects and built on so many of his innovative ideas that we are surrounded by technology in our present day lives. He built factories and machines to help to build more and bigger factories and machines during the industrial age.
Then came the age of computers and he secluded himself to an office corner to do his work. But his thirst for knowledge was hardly quenched. This innovation and technology which entails such ease of living came at a high price to the earth.
Man turned to the earth’s underbelly, rich with minerals and metals and oil and various other things. He dug them all up and used them to fuel his need for progress.
One such natural resource is magnets. We use them a lot in our daily lives. Here we discuss a very special type of magnets called the radially magnetized ring magnets.
How are radially magnetized ring magnets made?
Radially magnetized ring magnets may be made of many materials. One can use soft iron cores to make such magnets. Also one can use rare earth materials to make such magnets. Such magnets are very strong because of the strong magnetic properties of the rare earth metals. One such component which can be used to make magnets is NIB (NdFeB) or neodymium alloys.
The alloys are passed through different types of treatment to make them into ring magnets. Radially magnetization of ring magnets is particularly hard as these materials tend not to stay together and suddenly may gain multipoles.
The alloys are passed through a hot pressing facility where it is grinded to powder form and then melted and solidified to form the radial shape and to lose its magnetic polar properties.
Then the ring shaped alloy undergoes a specialized backward extrusion process where it is electrically charged and treated to form the radial magnetized ring magnet of super high strength.
This process results in radial magnetization as the magnetic pole are on the flat surfaces of the ring. These magnets are still very prone to chipping and rusting if the iron is exposed to air.
Hence they need to be coated to prevent corrosion. Also because of their high strength they need to be handled with extreme care as they may cause damage to the human body.
Where are radially magnetized ring magnets used?
These radially magnetized ring magnets of rare earth metals can come in various sizes, very small to large. Hence they find a wide range of applications in toys, servo motors and other small and powerful devices where high magnetic flux densities are required.
These magnets simplify rotor construction to a great extent.
