Tallest Open Loop SMOT?

[ElizabethGreene]

Is there a limitation on the maximum ball mass or height of an open loop smot?  E.g. Is it theoretically possible to pull a 10 or 100 gram round steel ball to the top of a 50 cm tower? 1 meter? 10 meter

un-closed loops are fine, I'm more curious about the vertical displacement.

Thanks!

Elizabeth.A.Greene@gmail.com

[mscoffman]

Elizabeth,

No there is no limit, But...Once the runner exists the array there is going to be a rather
massive force vector pulling the runner back towards all those magnets making up the track.
Think of the metal fire extinguisher being pulled across the room into the opening of the MRI
scanner, as an example. The question is can one keep control of the runner by making the track
magnets Halbach arrays, or something so one can get the runner back to the beginning of the
track under control. Magnetic fields contain their own accounting system called lines of force
quantization to keep them from doing what we want, easily. Is it impossible... or is it just
merely difficult?

[ElizabethGreene]

Thank you for the reply.  I hadn't considered that problem.  Is there any software I can use to simulate the physics of one of these?

Thanks!

[Paul-R]

i tjnk someone has got a steel ball up a height and trapped it to stop it falling back. It takes quite a lot of engineering.

You might want to think about the Calloway V track, or V gate.

[Fluxite]

if I understand the problem, its to pass the gate and still maintain or increase the kinetic energy?

Fluxite