2008 Volume 43 Issue 1 Pages 2-6
The Symposium on Electromagnetic Processing of Materials (EPM) was organized in the beginning of the 1990s in Japan in cooperation with France. EPM applies various electromagnetic phenomena to materials processing. In the early stages of EPM, it was mainly applied to steel-making processes like heating, melting, stirring, flow control and so on. However, its application has been extended recently to nonferrous metals like aluminum, and even to nonmagnetic materials by the use of DC superconducting magnets. In the present paper, examples of EPM are shown and the applicability of superconducting magnets to conventional EPM is investigated. If AC superconducting magnets are applied to conventional EPM, the limit of EPM due to the weakness of the magnetic field will be broken and a new stage of EPM applications will be opened.
