Coriolis, TSCK

This version of the recently completed exhibit should have allowed us to remedy some of the issues from our very first iteration for Singapore.

Brake system

The brake on the Singapore version did not really appreciably slow the rotation. This is partly because the aluminum stiffener didn’t run completely true, and thus the distance between magnet and conductor would variate. Additionally, the design would always have slowed all rotation, rather than slowing only rotation above a set rotation speed.

A centrifugal eddy current brake system was the chosen solution.

Since the FEA software necessary to accurately model the Electromagnetic interactions would require SolidWorks, rather than inventor, I had to make due with a rough approximation. The results of this approximate calculation don’t feel particularly reasonable to my intuition and real world experience.

Spreadsheets with approximate magnet braking force, radially moving carriage centrifugal force, and spring tension calculations was made.

Unfortunately, due to high-level mismanagement of the project, the brake feature/function was cut after complete CAD and design calculations were already completed, despite the exhibit design taking less than the allotted time for it.

It’s an interesting enough component to work on, that I may spin it off into a personal project, build a test rig to validate the design, and calibrate the spreadsheet and formulas for this design, such that it could be scaled for use in other cases.

Documentation

Look at these pretty exploded diagrams!