Could this be the next big thing in making an F1 car's drive train?
Unfortunately not, as the amount of torque you can transfer here is very little. I'm sure with little effort you could hold one "gear" and spin the other. Need the solid connection of a meshed gear to transfer "legit" amounts of torque.
Grip is a four letter word. All opinions are my own and not those of current or previous employers.
Most people fail to appreciate just how mechanically efficient a well designed spur gear mesh in an F1 transmission actually is. The mechanical losses in the mesh itself are usually less than .5% of transmitted power.
As for using the repulsive force of magnets to transfer torque in a similar manner to the way gears work, it would require massive magnets to provide the same load capacity as conventional gear teeth operating with hydrodynamic contact.
"Q: How do you make a small fortune in racing?
A: Start with a large one!"
Yes, I think riff_raff is on the mark. Modern gears have very little loss. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the losses in gears are caused by tooth friction and lubricant churning. Gear friction losses are very small, as you can see:
This table is for tooth friction losses: as you can see McLaren probably uses worm gears with a 20% efficiency
However, I have to disagree on this (as usual, I like to swim upriver while pelted with rocks by this forum, but hey, that's me):
1. Magnetic gears can transmit high torque, different from what riff_raff and JerseyTom (hi, guys, pleasure) assume.
Magnetic gears can exert as much force as a mechanical gear.
As you can see in this reference, the shear they can withstand depends only on the distance between "gears".
Shear vs distance in magnetic gears
If this distance is small, the shear they can take is very large.
The closer they get, the stronger they are. Like erections, would say Ted Clubberlang
2. Yes, mechanical gearboxes are very efficient. Nonetheless, magnetic gears are even more efficient. They can have not 99.5 but 99.9 efficiency.
Magnetic gears typically reduce losses by 20%.
If you use a Halbach array, which is essentially a monopole you can "concentrate" the magnetic field on one side of the gear, making it stronger and very efficient, as you can read here.
Halbach gears are pretty efficient and they are cool...
How to create the impossible: a magnet with just one pole
3. Please, correct me again if I'm wrong, you mechanical guys, but losses by hysteresis are inexistent, as there is no variable magnetic field, so I must contradict PhilipM (nice to meet you, Phil).
In a permanent magnet the force is created by electrons that spin aroun the nucleus. As there are no current, there are no losses by friction: if electrons created friction by turning and thus, collapse toward the nucleus, no one of us would be here.
Yeah, electrons turn and turn... forever
4. Now, they have unique properties: if you design an airtight system, for chemical or radiochemical systems, then they are invaluable.
I think that's the reason why the guy in the video posted by Moose (hi, Moose, thanks for the thread, my man) mentions the US Navy being interested in magnetic gearboxes: I wouldn't like to change radioactive oil
5. You can integrate the gearbox and the clutch, as you can read here.
Gearbox and clutch
6. Magnetic gearboxes can withstand overloads easily, as they can slip if working outside the range of design. So, they are inherently more reliable than mechanical gears.
This is, probably, Mr. Moose, why they are not good for F1: if they are really better and more technically advanced, FIA will forbid them.
We all know who is in charge of F1 regulations
So, if Doctor Evil (sorry, I meant Bernie) say they cannot be used, because gearboxes wouldn't break and thus there would be no penalties for changing gearboxes and the sadism of regulations would diminish to intolerable levels, hey, maybe they can be used for something useful and technologically more advanced than Formula One cars, like refrigerator magnets for pizza restaurants...
Typical F1 mechanical gearbox (well, except for Mercedes's, that apparently makes them of the same unobtainum they use in their engines). This is a Ferrari or a Honda gearbox, I think
Sorry for the long post, here you have a potato pizza. NInegaggers will understand
Surely you would have a variable magnetic field simply by the virtue of the large metal bits rotating next to each other - there's going to be micro slip no matter how strong your magnets are.
Also, getting your clearances in the micron range to give you enough torque transmission is going to be very difficult in a flexing gearbox casing, especially given your origin will be below the surface...
These "magnetic gears" still require rolling element bearings, which both have their own viscous and friction losses. And the PM device would also have hysteresis and windage losses much greater than the 0.10% claimed.
"Q: How do you make a small fortune in racing?
A: Start with a large one!"
