A hysteresis loop such as that obtained by plotting magnetometer deflection against curent supplied to a coil of wire wrapped round an iron or steel bar |
Introduction to hysteresis
When an electric current is passed through a coil of wire, the coil acts like a bar magnet with a north pole at one end and a south pole at the other. In other words, it acts like an electromagnet. If a bar of soft iron is placed inside the coil, the strength of the electromagnet is much increased. This is because the piece of soft iron is itself converted into a magnet by the effect of the current in the coil, and the strength of the magnet is added to that of the coil "magnet."This effect can be demonstrated in a series of simple experiments. An electric current is passed through the coil of wire, and an instrument which measures strengths of magnetic fields, a deflection magnetometer, is placed some distance from the solenoid, along the axis of the coil. As the current through the coil is increased, the deflection of the magnetometer needle increases, showing that the magnetic field around the coil is increasing.
By putting an iron bar in the coil, the magnetometer deflection is found to be very much greater. This shows that the combined magnetic field of coil and bat are
Electromagnets, which are simply iron bars
Many electromagnets are powered by alternating current (AC). The current increases in one direction up to a maximum, then decreases to zero and starts to increase in the opposite direction. It reaches its maximum in this direction, and then drops back again to zero. Current from the AC mains repeats this and to-and-fro cycle 50 or 60 times a second.
As the current in the coil surges to-and-fro, the iron bar is magnetized first in one direction and then in the other direction. But electromagnets are reluctant to change their direction of magnetization. The direction does change, but lags behind the change in current. Energy is wasted in forcing the bar to change its direction of magnetization and the name given to this energy loss is hysteresis.
Energy losses are always important in electric machinery. Obviously they must be reduced as much as possible if the machine is to work
Investigating hysteresis in the lab
Steel has a "fat" hysteresis loop. It is difficult to demagnetize, so steel is used for permanent magnets. Substances, such as soft iron, with thin hysteresis loops, are used for transformer cores. |
It is found that, as the current increases, the magnetometer deflection increases, but only up to a certain value. Then, no matter how the current is increased, the magnetometer reading stays the same. The strength of the electromagnet increases to a maximum, and the magnet is then said to be saturated.
When the current is reduced, the magnetometer deflection is reduced. But the iron bar tends to retain its magnetism, and even when the current is reduced to zero, its field continues to deflect the magnetometer needle. A considerable current must be pushed through the coil in the opposite direction before the bar finally loses its magnetism. Then, as the current is increased in the opposite direction, the bar is magnetized in the opposite direction. As one cycle is completed
The "fatness" of the loop is a measure of the amount of energy wasted in changing the direction of magnetization (i.e., the hysteresis loss). Soft iron hysteresis loops are thin, because soft iron is easily magnetized, demagnetized, and remagnetized in the opposite direction. Steel loops, on the other hand, are fat because steel is far more reluctant to change its direction of magnetization.
What causes hysteresis?
Why is there a maximum saturation value of the magnetism of the magnet, and what is happening inside it to cause hysteresis? The answerThe effect of the current is to swivel round the domains so that they are all pointing in the same direction. When they are all pointing in the same direction, no amount of current increase can strengthen them any more. The iron bar is magnetically saturated.
Hysteresis loops are not really smooth, as the iron is magnetized in little |
The domains are not entirely free
source : http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/H/hysteresis_loop.html