Vicalloy

Vicalloy is a family of cobalt-iron-vanadium wrought permanently magnetic alloys. Vicalloy is precipitation hardened and can be formed by a number of cold working techniques. It is commonly used in electromechanical device applications, such as Wiegand wires because it shows a large Wiegand effect.

It consists of 0.03% carbon, 0.4% manganese, 0.2% silicon, 52% cobalt, 10% vanadium; the balance (37.37%) is iron.

'Vicalloy' was used in hysteresis motors both in solid and laminated form (for higher frequency applications) by Vactric Ltd,and Walter Jones Ltd,- neither company still exist- using material produced and processed by Telcon Ltd, Crawley, UK, - now owned by Carpenter from about 2008.'Electrical Times', UK, published an article 'Magnetic Alloys for Hysteresis Motors' by D.R. Driver on 10 August 1967 which includes some magnetic charicteristics of Vically and P6 alloy. Work on applications in hysteresis motors was done at Aston University, UK, (the late Nick Capoldi who joined Smiths Industries) and The Electrical Research Association, UK, (Tasker and Bradford), amongst others.