The Effect of Tube Length, Coil Thickness and Magnet Spacing on the Efficiency of Current Produced by a Small Electromagnetic Generator
The problem of the research was to determine the significance of combinations of factors of tube length, coil thickness ,and magnet spacing while generating current. The objective was to see which combination would yield the greatest amount of current measured in amps. The research conducted can be used to make devices the generate small amounts of electricity which can be used to charge portable devices while on the go or when other viable charging sources are not available.
To simulate condition in which the generators would be active, a person would walk on a treadmill at a constant speed keeping stride length and walking cadence consistent. The generator was wired to a lab quest current sensor and data was collected through the logger pro software. The data collected measured the average current generated per step. After the data collection was completed, it was found that none of the effect values found in the single factors and interaction effects were deemed statistically significant. The effect of coil thickness had the largest effect value showing that as layers increase, current decreases. This could be due to resistance of the wire and small amounts generated. But again, none of the data could be deemed statistically significant due to variance in the standard trials conducted.
Research Conducted By:
Salvatore Messina
Cousino High School
Justin Shang
Cousino High School
Warren Consolidated Schools