We continue making pads for all sorts of applications both transmitting and receiving power but there is a special class for roadway pads in hostile conditions where ferrite is really not suitable and will be destroyed under any of a variety of circumstances. If the fragile nature of ferrite was removed either by a better magnetic material or with a ferrite-less construction then the situation changes markedly for the better and concrete based pads are clearly superior mechanically - but suffer magnetically. This project is examining pads for this purpose with new materials, and with no magnetic material at all to try to find techniques where the sensitivity of the ferrite-less structure can be improved, and/or use new materials that are mechanically strong and magnetically a lot better than air. The pad is aimed at applications on a vehicle or a roadway and the idea is to find some new ideas and see what improvements can be made. A 50% improvement would be a significant improvement so getting tangible result is not seen as completely impossible. The project will include real pads and computer simulations for real and laboratory applications.
Undergraduate
A new pad which is physically very strong to the point where cars and trucks can drive over it without damage yet the pad competes in sensitivity with conventional fragile pads is needed.The pad will be very heavy and relatively large but the large pard will be buried under the roadway and the visible pad will be flush with the road surface. The pad will have a high arching flux allowing large clearances between the pad and the lower surface of traffic passing over it.
Power Electronics. analog and digital electronics.
Lab allocations have not been finalised