Design and Experimental Validation of a Pulsed Electromagnetic Sheet Shearing System

A pulsed electromagnetic shearing system consisting of a pulsed magnet driven by a capacitor bank and a conductive plate as a driver has been proposed, designed, and developed for thick plate cutting. The interaction of the pulsed magnetic field with the eddy current induced on the copper driver produces a huge Lorentz force that pushes a blade to cut off the steel sheet of heavy thickness. To validate the effectiveness of the system, magnetic force acting on the driver plate in the shearing process was analyzed and a series of experiments were carried out. Results show that the maximum of generated electromagnetic force reaches about 100 tons in the simulations and a steel plate with a thickness of 10 mm can be effectively cut without any burrs and slivers in the experiments.