EDDY CURRENT SEPARATORS
When crossing a variable magnetic field, non-ferrous pieces of metals are exposed to repulsion forces that tend to make them jump away from the variable magnetic field source. Eddy Current Separators (ECS) are belt separators that take advantage of this physical principle. The head drum assembly of an ECS consists in an outside shell that drives the separator belt inside of which a pulley magnet is disposed with multiple axial alternate polarities. The inner pulley magnet spins at a much higher speed than the outside shell. This exposes the pieces of non-ferrous metals, travelling on the belt of the ECS, to the variable magnetic field. This results from the high-speed sequence of the alternate polarities of the magnet pulley.
From the ECS side, the higher the frequency of the variable magnetic field and the larger the size and energy of the permanent magnet blocks mounted on the head pulley magnet, the more performing the ECS separation. From the material side, some non-ferrous metals react more and quicker than others to ECS based on their electrical conductivity property, their size, shape and mass. Typically, large and flat pieces of aluminum react very quickly and strongly to ECS while small hair copper wires react less and slower.
Different non-ferrous metal separation applications call for different design ECS.
ECS are used for either the recovery or elimination of non-ferrous metals in many different industrial applications like: