Schuck Marcel, Steinert Daniel, Nussbaumer Thomas, Kolar Johann W
Power Electronic Systems Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Technoparkstrasse 1, 8005 Zurich, Switzerland.
Levitronix GmbH, Technoparkstrasse 1, 8005 Zurich, Switzerland.
Sci Adv. 2018 Jan 5;4(1):e1701519. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1701519. eCollection 2018 Jan.
Our world is increasingly powered by electricity, which is largely converted to or from mechanical energy using electric motors. Several applications have driven the miniaturization of these machines, resulting in high rotational speeds. Although speeds of several hundred thousand revolutions per minute have been used industrially, we report the realization of an electrical motor reaching 40 million rpm to explore the underlying physical boundaries. Millimeter-scale steel spheres, which are levitated and accelerated by magnetic fields inside a vacuum, are used as a rotor. Circumferential speeds exceeding 1000 m/s and centrifugal accelerations of more than 4 × 10 times gravity were reached. The results open up new research possibilities, such as the testing of materials under extreme centrifugal load, and provide insights into the development of future electric drive systems.
我们的世界越来越依赖电力，而电力在很大程度上是通过电动机与机械能相互转换的。多种应用推动了这些电机的小型化，从而实现了高转速。尽管工业上已使用每分钟数十万转的转速，但我们报告了一台达到4000万转/分钟的电动机的实现，以探索其潜在的物理极限。毫米级的钢球在真空中通过磁场悬浮并加速，用作转子。实现了超过1000米/秒的圆周速度和超过4×10倍重力的离心加速度。这些结果开辟了新的研究可能性，例如在极端离心负载下测试材料，并为未来电动驱动系统的发展提供了见解。
