Magnetmuseum

Description

On the Tridelta group's industrial site in Dortmund-Aplerbeck, the Magnet Museum illustrates the technical and industrial development of permanent magnets. It is a private specialist museum for magnetic technology and is directly connected to the former Magnetfabrik Aplerbeck.

The museum is located on the site where the Aplerbecker Hütte’s magnet factory once operated; the Tridelta group still manufactures, among other things, permanent magnets for the electrical industry there.

The museum was founded on 27 August 1999; the development of the collection was driven largely by two former employees of the magnet factory. After a company-ordered closure in October 2005, the museum found new premises on the Tridelta site and was reopened on 20 June 2013 in the former executive offices of Deutsche Edelstahlwerke.

The collection comprises around 35 tonnes of exhibits, with some items not on permanent display but kept in storage. The permanent exhibition presents historical and current applications of permanent magnets with an emphasis on electrical engineering. It presents the development of materials and their use in devices such as meters, loudspeakers, telephones, switches, relays, clocks, measuring instruments, small motors, generators and in brakes, for example hysteresis brakes. Another focus is the eventful history of the Magnetfabrik Aplerbeck.

The site's industrial origins date back to 1920, when magnet production began as part of the Aplerbecker Hütte and initially focused on AlNiCo permanent magnets. After acquisition by Deutsche Edelstahlwerke AG in 1927, new factory and office buildings were erected between 1938 and 1940, at times employing up to 1,700 people. In the mid-1970s the factory became part of the Thyssen group. In the 1990s production and trading were separated in several stages; the actual manufacturing in Aplerbeck was sold to the Tridelta group in 1997, which continues to produce permanent magnets there. The trading-oriented units evolved through various renamings and relocations until their integration into the ThyssenKrupp-Schulte structures and their later relocation to Essen.