World's Largest Homopolar Generator ft. Tibees!

Рет қаралды 12,496

Күн бұрын

Through the 1950s and 60s, physicists and engineers at the the Australian National University constructed the largest homopolar generator ever built. It was a challenging and, at times, dangerous project. The generator supplied experiments ranging from lasers to a plasma tokamak.
Toby and I filmed another video together on Toby's channel:
• Is it hard to do a PhD...
Toby's channel:
/ tibees
Music:
Cool Rock Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons...

Пікірлер: 33

@tibees 6 жыл бұрын

Thanks for explaining the HPG to me, now it's no longer a mystery to me when I walk past each morning!

@evilgod894 Жыл бұрын

Aside bragging, Your also a waste of time.

@rohan.fernando 2 жыл бұрын

Recently read the engineering paper on this project and it was a seriously large challenge at the time when it was undertaken by Oliphant et al.

@liam3284 6 ай бұрын

Flywhweel energy storage! First time I saw the equipment outside a textbook

@MAGATRON-DESTROY 5 ай бұрын

This is not an energy storing flywheel, it's a homopolar generator. It produces low voltage but very high amperage. Even though Faraday made it over a century ago it's still not understood and is not explainable by faradays law

@teachermichaelmaalim6103 4 жыл бұрын

The alloy of sodium and potassium is a liquid at room temperature. I have learnt something today 😂

@evilgod894 Жыл бұрын

So you learned today that you peak the language of GOATS

@aggabus 5 жыл бұрын

2 magnets.. copper disc?

@drgozzard 5 жыл бұрын

Copper plates on a steel disk.

@kery1334 6 ай бұрын

HPG are also used to heat billets before they are forged in a foundry. The only one I know about could deliver forty two Volts at six hundred fifty million Amps. It took about one and half minutes to bring it up to speed before the energy is dumped. Lots of Joules and lots of Henrys. Solenoid activated brushes were slammed onto the outer edge of a two meter spinning disk to deliver the charge. It is all encased in a shell and driven by an electric motor. I don't remember any more details than these since it was about 1970. It was, however needless to say, IMPRESSIVE ....tfk

@OGTYGO 3 жыл бұрын

Late night Dr.stone binge smh great content tho!

@albonyo 6 жыл бұрын

Very interesting indeed. I am interested in knowing more about this device.. Especially the liquid brushes. Is there documentation online? A follow up video perhaps ?

@drgozzard 6 жыл бұрын

Hmm. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll think about doing a follow-up video. The details of the design, development, and testing of the generator were published in scientific journals at the time and lots of information can be found this way. The Australian National University also hosts a lot of the old information online. For the brushes in particular, you can find a lot of detailed information here: press.anu.edu.au/publications/design-brushes-canberra-homopolar-generator

@steveforbin911 5 жыл бұрын

Can you post some dimensions and the voltage and amps, and magnetic field, rpm and power input and output and how it was set up.

@marciogastaldi3077 3 жыл бұрын

Nice! Thanks for sharing. I didn't know about the NaK alloy until today. Also, from your video I understand that this device was meant to work based on the energy stored in the spinning wheel. Homopolar, yes, but this was a big flywheel in the first place if I understood it correctly.

@princeoftheblues 4 ай бұрын

They should have used eutectic solder and just kept it hot with current.

@kery1334 6 ай бұрын

BTW the HPG in this article is NOT the largest. The one I am familiar with is larger than this. HPG are probably used in the modern day electronic catapult used on our aircraft carriers. They are still used in foundries todey. Silver loaded graphite brushes (many) were used on the periphery of the disk. See my previous comment here. .......tfk

@rollmeister 2 жыл бұрын

The magnets can be attached to the disk, rotating with it.

@karlswanson95 4 ай бұрын

Does it have to be a disc? Could a cylinder work as well or do you need the rotational gradient that a disc provides?

@drgozzard 4 ай бұрын

A cylinder would make no difference. It's not the rotational gradient - you just need the conductor moving in the magnetic field. A cylinder would use additional material but not add generation capacity.

@karlswanson95 4 ай бұрын

@@drgozzard Thank you for your response. Seems to me that a drum configuration could potentially increase the surface area of the conductor within the magnetic field. Do you not see any possible benefit in that?

@drgozzard 4 ай бұрын

@@karlswanson95 The magnetic field is applied through the thickness of the disk. So the area of the circle of the disk matters. The surface area of the main body of the cylinder wouldn't contribute anything to the generation.