Before the digital age, when transistors were expensive, unreliable, and/or nonexistent, engineers had to use other tricks to do things that we take for granted nowadays. Motor positioning, for ...

The integration of rotary and linear motions within a single actuation system has emerged as a transformative development in modern electromechanical engineering. Rotary-linear actuators combine the ...

The characteristics of magnetic actuators and their sensors when they're first energized can usually be ignored, except in applications requiring speedy response. Magnetic actuators and sensors are ...

Electromagnetic clutches handle torque and speed requirements of most small to midsize gas and diesel engines up to 40 hp and engine shaft sizes of 1, 11/8, 1¼, and 17/16 in. Electromagnetic clutches ...

In 1831, Joseph Henry invented a battery-powered rocking-beam motor that he later described as the first electromagnetic machine. He repeatedly modified the design over his career, but only one ...

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www ...