Engineers find a new way to punch holes through steel

@Novo Ordo Seclorum: your objection is the same as Vespasian's upon seeing Hero's steam engine. Simply, labor will be put to more valuable use than de-burring metal edges, the work of robots.

Machines work; people think. Move beyond mere Luddism.

Very cool. I did not know that electromagnetic forming machines were already in routine use. I can see that this would be especially handy for prototypes and small production runs, in order to avoid the high costs of custom tooling. Even for stamping, making only one half of the die rather than two would cut the tooling costs in half. In terms of danger to nearby people and machines, shielding and distance are the safety factors. Punch presses and other metal-forming machines are already pretty dangerous and have numerous safety devices to make sure workers keep their body parts out of the way. Electromagnetic fields, like all radiation, decrease in intensity as the square of the distance. It may well be that a high-power machine designed for punching small holes has no greater field a few feet away than a lower-powered machine designed for shaping thin sheets -- the former just concentrates its energy more tightly.

In terms of overall power consumption, there's no theoretical reason why an electromagnetic punch or press should be any less efficient than a mechanical one. In both cases the useful work consists moving the metal some distance while overcoming the resistance imposed by its ultimate yield strength. The mechanical press has frictional losses in its mechanism and its dies and electrical losses in its motor, whereas the electromagnetic version has primarily resistive losses in its working coil, plus some losses in the charging and control circuitry. Although the peak power while "firing" a hole in a piece of metal is very high, it's only the average power, or the power per hole punched that matters. The capacitor bank of the electromagnetic punch accomplishes the same thing as the massive flywheel of an old-fashioned punch press -- evening out the machine's demand on the power supply. Presumably the highest power and highest efficiency, at great expense, could be achieved by using superconducting coils.

The question of weaponization is also a good one. Any tool can be a weapon since tools are devices used to deliberately modify objects and a weapon is a tool used to deliberately modify your enemy or his property. The weaponizaton potential here, I think, comes not so much from using a large heavy machine to punch holes in enemy armor, but from potential improvements in technology that could be used for rail guns. Enemy armor is not likely to sit still long enough for you to wheel this large machine with its power supply up in contact with the armor and then fire it, and it would be mighty tough to pack such a machine into an artillery shell. But the problem of discharging a capacitor bank through a coil to generate extremely high and yet well-controlled currents and magnetic fields is exactly the problem that make electromagnetic rail guns difficult and impractical. The two possible approaches are either to plan on vaporizing a disposable coil with every shot, or use a large water-cooled coil and accept the lower peak flux and greater bulk and complexity. Neither approach is produced a practical artillery piece, much yet a shoulder-fired rifle.

@K9G Just because Luddism proved wrong in the past does not mean it will prove wrong for all time. And I think that we are reaching the point where Luddist concerns are becoming socially relevant: technology is displacing people. Ideally labor will be put to a more valuable use as technology improves but in practice there is a fundamental surplus of unskilled labor; there maybe no more valuable use for such labor and it will be discarded or more likely the relative real wage of unskilled labor will fall. Not every de-burrer can become an engineer through education or move to the service industry and work at McDonalds or BestBuy.

I'll ask the obvious question. I wonder if this could be scaled up and used as a weapon? My guess is no because the range seems to be pretty limited.

Great article!

@Novo Ordo Seclorum:
The UK 2 centuries ago: population - 15 million; unemployment rate - somewhere between 20 to 30%; poverty - widespread.

The UK today after a 200-year explosion in innovation: population - 62 million; unemployment rate - somewhere between 10% (in a recession); poverty - by the standards on the UK in 1810, non-existent.

You say: "Just because Luddism proved wrong in the past does not mean it will prove wrong for all time." Theoretically true, but the way things are going demographically there will be a shortage of labour in the developed world.

Another reason to lay off more manufacturing workers. The stamped sheet metal will now not have to be de-burred by hand. Dies will not have to replaced periodically. Interesting technology though. My point with this comment is that improving production processes almost always increases owner's profits and decreases workers incomes or jobs. Imagine 10,000 of this sort of innovation. How can we get out of the trap?

That must take an impressive amount of energy to operate, though. Where does energy cost and production efficiency start to balance out?

capacitor's a very versatile component of an integrited circuit, acting in concert with an inductor to achieve the desired output along with a transistor, a resistor, and amplifier. each of these component plays a specific role in an eledtronic circuit. a puch hole making machine is just one application in electronics.

Note to self: don't wear metal buttons or rings next time you go to a factory. It could be both embarrassing and painful.

Great innovation!
For an engineer, shaping cutting and drilling heavy metals to a desired extend, is the most difficult process especially for large parts. This technique will dispel handling and tooling handicaps I think. I hope that the EMP has less side effects on the operators' health.

If only this came a decade or two ago, when paper still mattered, we could have had a 3-hole punch that actually worked consistently.

This is a hole new ballgame in the electro-magnetic field.

By making manufacturing clean and safe, this can bring back manufacturing jobs form China to developed world.

Power consumption may be an issue - you should indeed have asked more questions!

Excellent article. Analysis could have included more disadvantages of this technology

I wonder if its the same EMP concept which was used in one of the Ocean's movies.

"An electromagnetic punch, however, stamps its hole without tearing the metal"

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but how exactly does the EMP device stamp the hole if it doesn't tear the material out?

On a side note, I'd hate to be the guy working behind this thing and having metal plugs shooting at me all day.

Yes! This is it. Innovation is the key.

To Novo Ordo Seclorum - I'm pretty sure you are wrong on this one, but your opinions are refreshingly different and decently argued.