Our client, a leading University.

Carlos Mora and his team were appointed to design, develop and construct a new look for the tired old Foucault Pendulum. Our team of designer, a Bachelor of Electronics Engineering (Communications), cabinet maker, printers, and metal turners.

 

As a team we developed this design which was approved and commission to be built.

 

It is now a new feature of the legacy of the professors C.F Moppert and W.J Bonwick.

 

The first pendulum which was built by the Department of Mechanical Engineering and inaugurated on 27th of July 1979. The original design was a Lead filled Copper Sphere with a Steel rod through its centre and was suspended by 0.91mm diameter piano wire.

 

It is located in building 9 Rainforest Walk, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Victoria 3800.

 

The Pendulum drive system consisted of a magnet on the plumb bob base, an electronic drive circuit and a drive coil assembly hidden beneath the floor of the display.

The system operates without electrical contacts. The permanent magnet is a cylindrical barium ferrite ceramic C5 grade, when it moves over the coil, it induces a tiny electric current pulse. This pulse triggers the release of a large current pulse from the electronic drive circuit back into the coil. This gives the magnet small boost, which is exactly radial to the coil centre axis.

 

To maintain the precise momentum of the sphere, it needed to manufacture accurately the plumb bob a 14 kg weight, 200mm in diameter made from a Billet Aluminium block (Pure Aluminium), a 30 mm diameter magnet was placed inside the bob at the base, Electroplated in Copper finish, then electroplated in Nickel finish and finally gold plated for a lasting shine.

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FROM THE ARTICLE:

The New Foucault Pendulum at Monash University, Clayton Campus, by C.F Mopper and W.J Bonwick, Departments of Mathematics and Electrical Engineering, respectively. Monash University, Clayton Victoria 3168, Australia. 27th July 1979. Royal Astronomical Society, Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System.