Physical characteristics of electromagnetic levitation processing

Electromagnetic levitation has developed from a pure physical phenomenon in to a practical containerless processing technique in the fields of both app lied physics and materials science. In order to obtain a better understandi ng of this processing technique, two typical levitation coils were designed and the physical characteristics in levitation droplets suspended in these two coils, such as electromangetic field, levitation force field, total le vitation force, and power absorption, were analyzed numerically and calcula ted in this paper. It was found that the eddy current density, together wit h the magnetic flux density and levitation force density, increases rapidly with radius as it approaches sample surface. The maximum levitation force produced by coil A is larger than that of coil B, whereas the levitated sam ple can obtain less power absorption at the equilibrium position in the for mer coil than that in the latter one. Moreover, the calculated results also demonstrated that the levitation ability decreases as the atomic number in creases. The larger the material's electrical resistivity, the easier the s amples can obtain more power absorption.