Interactions between polyhedral permanent magnets
type: CreativeWork
description: With the current trend toward industrial automation, efficient energy generation, and electric motor vehicles, permanent magnets are seeing more widespread use than ever before. They permeate our world, enabling sound generation through loudspeakers, mass data storage in the server farms keeping us online, and even the vibration motors in our pockets notifying us of new messages. Never before have permanent magnets seen such widespread use, and thus it is paramount to understand the interactions between them. The primary aim of this thesis is to investigate and model the magnetic fields produced by generalised polyhedral permanent magnets, and the forces and torques between them. To achieve this aim, two main objectives were identified. The first objective was to analytically solve the magnetic charge model field equations for arbitrary polyhedral permanent magnets with a relative permeability of unity. This was performed using two unique approaches, leading to two unique but equivalent sets of field solutions, with the first being more effective when the field is calculated at few points, and the second being more effective when the field is calculated at many points. These field solutions were implemented in MATLAB code with a focus on computation efficiency, thus reducing calculation time. The solutions may also be used to numerically integrate over the surface of another magnet to accurately estimate the force and torque imparted. The second objective was to derive a methodology to model the field due to a polyhedral permanent magnet with non-unity relative permeability. This was done by applying a surface mesh to a magnet, and allowing the ‘magnetic charge’ on each surface element to vary based on the permeability and magnetic field passing through the element. This was derived in such a way that the field is calculated only once, with no iteration required. Rather, a matrix equation is solved to give the surface charge distribution, leading to calculations of …
abstract: With the current trend toward industrial automation, efficient energy generation, and electric motor vehicles, permanent magnets are seeing more widespread use than ever before. They permeate our world, enabling sound generation through loudspeakers, mass data storage in the server farms keeping us online, and even the vibration motors in our pockets notifying us of new messages. Never before have permanent magnets seen such widespread use, and thus it is paramount to understand the interactions between them. The primary aim of this thesis is to investigate and model the magnetic fields produced by generalised polyhedral permanent magnets, and the forces and torques between them. To achieve this aim, two main objectives were identified. The first objective was to analytically solve the magnetic charge model field equations for arbitrary polyhedral permanent magnets with a relative permeability of unity. This was performed using two unique approaches, leading to two unique but equivalent sets of field solutions, with the first being more effective when the field is calculated at few points, and the second being more effective when the field is calculated at many points. These field solutions were implemented in MATLAB code with a focus on computation efficiency, thus reducing calculation time. The solutions may also be used to numerically integrate over the surface of another magnet to accurately estimate the force and torque imparted. The second objective was to derive a methodology to model the field due to a polyhedral permanent magnet with non-unity relative permeability. This was done by applying a surface mesh to a magnet, and allowing the ‘magnetic charge’ on each surface element to vary based on the permeability and magnetic field passing through the element. This was derived in such a way that the field is calculated only once, with no iteration required. Rather, a matrix equation is solved to give the surface charge distribution, leading to calculations of …
author: O'Connell, James Lawrence Grady
language: en
keywords: Magnets, Permanent magnets, Magnetostatics, Permeability, Electromagnetism
date published: 2021
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:50:59Z
provider: University of Adelaide
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Adelaide

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2440/135476