Permanent Magnet and Electromechanical Devices: Materials, Analysis, and Applications

Author: Edward P. Furlani
ISBN-13: 978-0122699511
Year: 2001
Publisher: Academic Press

The author of this book, Dr. Edward Furlani, works at the Eastman Kodak Company carrying out applied magnetics research involving the design and development of magnetic devices and processes. The book, which arises from the author's considerable experience, is written to be useful as a self-contained textbook in Electrical Engineering, with substantial discussions of the physical principles of magnetism, magnetic materials, Maxwell's Equations, magnetostatics, and analytical and numerical methods. There are also appendices covering vector analysis, Green's functions, systems of equations, and units.

Most of the book is appropriately devoted to the analysis of practical devices, roughly divided into the Title subjects: permanent magnet applications and electromechanical devices. Among the topics covered are permanent magnet brushless DC motors, stepper motors, magnetic circuit actuators, rare-earth magnetic couplings, magnetic gears, magnetic bearings, MRI devices, electrophotography (including the magnetic brush), magneto-optical recording, free-electron laser magnets, linear and rotational actuators, magnetic levitation, and magnetic MEMS actuators.

In addition to its use as a textbook, the book should also be quite useful as a reference volume for students and workers in the field, although it is not sufficiently comprehensive to be lauded as a handbook. Perhaps the second edition can aspire to this. In the basics areas, it needs more coverage on ferrimagnetism (ferrites are well covered), the magnetocaloric effect, and on the Preisach model. In the applications area, exchange spring magnets, and hysteresis brakes or clutches appear to be missing. More intensive indexing would also be useful, e.g, Halbach configurations are nicely discussed and referenced, but Halbach does not appear in the index.