Re: Can two flat objects be electromagnetized so that they oppose each other?

Hi Anthony!

What you are asking about is commonly done in manufacturing plants. It is called the "fanning effect", because it is used to "fan" stacks of iron sheets apart so that workers can grab a single one from the top of the stack. This works only with ferromagnetic metals such as iron, steel, nickle, cobalt, etc.

To fan a stack of sheets apart, we place the north pole of a powerful permanent magnet near one edge of the stack, and the south pole of another magnet near another edge of the stack. This causes the parts of the stack near the magnet poles to become magnetized with polarity opposite to that of the magnet's poles. Beacause the parts of the sheets near the magnets are all magnetized ALIKE, those sheets REPEL each other. If the magnets are strong enough, the top sheet of the stack will lift upwards. For stacks of small metal sheets, the second sheet will lift too (but less), and the third, fourth, etc. will lift up a bit.

Nonferrous metals can also be lifted by using a different process, but this other process causes attraction, not repulsion.

If an AC electromagnet is held near a metal sheet, the magnet will act as the primary coil of a "transformer" and the metal sheet will act as the secondary. The electron sea of the sheet will circulate in a circular pattern, vibrating back and forth. The sheet will be repelled from the AC coil (but that is not the effect we want.)

If TWO sheets are held near the AC electromagnet, an electric current will be created in both sheets. The magnetic field created by the current-loops in the two sheets will cause the two sheets to ATTRACT each other. This effect can be used to create an electromagnet which can lift aluminum

If one sheet is replaced by a metal ring, and if this metal ring is attached to the end of the AC electromagnet, then this metal ring will attract any large piece of conductive metal. The ring/electromagnet device can be used to lift a sheet of aluminum, copper, etc. It cannot lift small pieces because there must be a large area in the attracted metal, so that the loop of flowing charge can be created by electromagnetic induction (transformer effect.)