2018 Review of Magnet News and Blogs
By Paul Fears | 18 December 2018
Technical Articles on Magnets and Assemblies 2018
2018 has been another exciting year for eMagnets and Bunting Magnetics. Magnetic technology has never been more important. Advances in environmental technology such as electric vehicles and wind turbines would not be possible without the simple magnet. Throughout the year we reviewed some really novel and inspiring ways in which magnetic technology is applied.
February
In 2017, the UK government announced that 2018 will be the Year of Engineering, a national campaign to increase awareness and understanding of engineering among young people aged 7-16, their parents and their teachers. This is part of a year-long campaign to tackle the engineering skills gap and widen the pool of young people who join the profession. We wanted to show our support for such an important issue.
March
Within the magnet industry, there are growing concerns that cutting edge technology could start driving up the price of rare earth minerals. The Rare Earth mineral Neodymium is used in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles and for magnets used in wind turbines and computer hard drives. Our article assessed the implications of the expected increased demand for rare earth minerals.
May
We featured an article about Tidi-Cable. We had supplied bespoke Ferrite Magnets to Tidi-Cable for their newly released Tidi-Patch ® Magnetic. Tidi-Patches instantly lift dangerous trailing cables off the ground and remove potential trip hazards.
They are used on construction sites, at festivals/events, in factories, in film studios, in mining operations, on oil/gas production sites, shipping yards, and railways. A simple but innovative product.
August
We asked if offices could continue to function without the simple magnet. The article focused on three vital pieces of technology that would cease to exist without a Magnet.
Our magnet technical team provided us an update on new magnet developments. Using Grain Boundary Diffusion Technology, we are now producing Neodymium Magnets that are able to work in the harshest of environments.
September
In September, we exhibited at the Cenex-LCV 2018 event held in Millbrook, Bedfordshire, UK. Cenex-LCV is the UK’s premier low carbon vehicle event. There was an exhibition area as well as an extensive seminar programme. In our post-event review, we reviewed the gradual move to electric vehicles.
October
The Bunting Health and Safety Committee was thrilled to announce being awarded the ISO45001 international standard for occupational health and safety (OH&S).
The depth of British engineering and manufacturing expertise was apparent at the Engineering Design Show (Ricoh Arena, Coventry, UK, 17-18 October 2018). At the show, our UK-based design engineers were available to talk about bespoke magnet and magnetic assembly designs.
At the end of the month, we announced sponsorship of the UK Magnetics Society’s 31st Ewing Event. The annual event focused on the future, assessing what magnet developments may occur in the next 30 years.
November
The first of two case history technical articles in November reviewed a recent project for a bespoke Magnetiser. High strength magnets (eg Neodymium Rare Earth) are a vital part of many everyday electric appliances. Charging those small magnets for use in electronics applications often requires a high degree of accuracy. One typical example is where the magnet interacts with a sensor to confirm that a component is correctly in place.
The second article discussed how we helped a customer reduce the manufacturing cost of a magnetic assembly by 90%. This was achieved by developing a plastic-coated magnetic assembly that could be magnetised after the injection moulding process.
December
At the UK Magnetics Society’s Ewing Event at the end of November 18, the future was very much described as being ‘magnetic’. Industry experts predicted that magnetic engineering would be fundamental in the development of environmental technology. An exciting future lies ahead!
Thank you for reading our news and blogs in 2018. It has been an exciting year and we hope to have helped increase your magnet knowledge. If you need any information on magnets or magnetic assemblies please contact us on:
Phone: +44(0)1442 875081
Email: sales.berkhamsted@buntingmagnetics.com
