Linear motor: Difference between revisions

The history of linear electric motors can be traced back at least as far as the 1840s, to the work of [[Charles Wheatstone]] at [[King's College London]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kcl.ac.uk/college/history/people/wheatstone.html |title=Charles Wheatstone - College History - King's College London |publisher=Kcl.ac.uk |access-date=2010-03-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091021162729/http://www.kcl.ac.uk/college/history/people/wheatstone.html |archive-date=2009-10-21 }}</ref> but Wheatstone's model was too inefficient to be practical. A feasible linear induction motor is described in the {{US patent|782312}} (1905 - inventor Alfred Zehden of Frankfurt-am-Main), for driving trains or lifts. The German engineer [[Hermann Kemper]] built a working model in 1935.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cem.colorado.edu/archives/fl1997/thor.html |title=CEM - Fall/Winter 1997 Issue - Germany's Transrapid |access-date=2011-08-24 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928000224/http://cem.colorado.edu/archives/fl1997/thor.html |archive-date=2011-09-28 }}</ref> In the late 1940s, Dr. [[Eric Laithwaite]] of [[University of Manchester|Manchester University]], later Professor of Heavy Electrical Engineering at [[Imperial College]] in [[London]] developed the first full-size working model. In a single sided version the magnetic repulsion forces the conductor away from the stator, levitating it, and carrying it along in the direction of the moving magnetic field. He called the later versions of it [[magnetic river]]. The technologies would later be applied, in the 1984, [[Air-Rail Link#Maglev|Air-Rail_LinkRail Link]] shuttle, between Birmingham's airport and an adjacent train station.