Do Broken Superconductors Affect Levitation Distance?

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weeps
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Hello!

Me and some friends are doing a phyics project at school. The theme is superconductor. The school have a superconductor, but its broken i half (like two half moons). My question is: will this effect the result? And does the thickness matter how far above the surfice it will levitate?

And does anyone have any suggestions were you can buy superconductor (cheap)?

This is what we though about.



Thank =)
 
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weeps said:
My question is: will this effect the result?

No, it won't look as pretty but it won't affect the main results

And does the thickness matter how far above the surfice it will levitate?

No, not at the scales we are talking about here. As far as I remember there are some pre-factors that come into if the SC is very thin or very narro, but the length scale is set by the penetraton depth whihc is of the order of tens of nm, meaning this is not an issue here.
 
Okay, we had some problems with our superconductor, it only levitated max 0.1-0.5 mm above our magnetics. Can we improve it in anyway?
 
weeps said:
Okay, we had some problems with our superconductor, it only levitated max 0.1-0.5 mm above our magnetics. Can we improve it in anyway?

What was the strength of your magnets?
 
Grade 42
Pullforce Class 1 6.56 lbs
Pullforce Class 2 50.86 lbs
 
We got really strong magnetics. We suspect that we might need a stronger superconductor