Projects:2019s1-142 The Ball Bearing Motor Mystery

Supervisors

• Prof Derek Abbott
• Dr Andrew Allison

Honours students

• Jayden Hayward
• Richard Saing

General project description

The ball bearing motor is a mystery because to this day as no engineer knows how it works! No one understands the physical principle at all. Your job is to do some experiments to investigate this motor and why it is that it rotates. Understanding the principle is important. It may not be useful for large motors, but it may be interesting for micromotors and micropumps that have numerous applications.

Abstract

Based on the Huber Effect, the ball bearing motor can be made to continuously rotate in either direction when supplied with either a DC or AC voltage. This phenomenon was first observed in 1959 and has since motivated a number of theories to explain the underlying principles behind the motor's operation. This projects aims to test the validity of some of these theories by taking a modular approach to testing the ball bearing motor. An attempt to evaluate the electromagnetic behaviour is made with the use of the a simulation software called ANSYS Maxwell. The relationship between angular velocity and motor torque are also obtained with the use of a load cell and tachometer. The completion of this project hopes to assist future research into the application of the ball bearing motor in micro electrical-mechanical systems whilst leading further research into the Huber Effect in the right direction.

Deliverables and Tasks

Semester 1

• Start Project Work (Week 1)
• Proposal seminar (Week 6)
  • File:142 Proposal Seminar2019.pdf
• Thesis draft (Week 12) - only one report needed in wiki format
  • File:142 Progress Report2019.pdf

Semester 2

• Ball Bearing Motor Mystery YouTube video (Week 3)
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-OtHLq0KVU
• The reactions of metals with Gallium YouTube video (Week 7)
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nglK-_yMVz4
• Final thesis (Week 12) - only one report needed in wiki format
  • Final ball bearing motor thesis 2019
• Final seminar (Week 13)
  • File:142 Final Seminar 2019.pdf
• Project exhibition 'expo' (Week 13)
• CD or stick containing your whole project directories (Week 13)

Weekly progress and questions

• The mystery of the ball bearing motor 2019 weekly progress

Specific Tasks

• Step 1: Film the construction and operation of the motor.
• Step 2: Use COMSOL to simulate the motor to see if you can investigate what happens in simulation.
• Step 3: Characterize the motor. Using an encoding wheel and a photosensor, plot curves of torque versus angular velocity of the motor.

References and useful resources

• Method to measure torque
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIpspXaPVcs