Calculating the strength of a magnet

We're going to start with an electromagnet, to look at how magnets

are measured, because in some ways it is easier to understand
electromagnets first.

Consider the two electromagnets shown above. The one on the right
is a simple coil of insulated copper wire wound around a piece of
iron, such as a nail.
The one on the left is the same, but the iron core has been bent
around into the shape of the letter 'C', much like a horseshoe
magnet.
The left picture makes it easier to see what is called a magnetic
circuit. The coil makes a magnet that has a north and a south pole,
and the magnetism moves in a circuit from the north to the south,
crossing the air gap to get there.
In this respect, a magnetic circuit is similar to an electrical circuit.
The flow always goes from one pole to another, like electricity goes
from one side of a battery to the other.
Magnetic flux is reluctant to travel through air. It is much easier for
it to travel through iron. We say that air has a high reluctance, and
iron has a low reluctance. This is similar to resistance in an electrical
circuit.
In an electrical circuit, we have Ohm's Law, which says that voltage
is equal to current times resistance. In a similar way,
magnetomotive force is equal to the magnetic flux times the
reluctance. Thus magnetomotive force is similar to voltage, and
magnetic flux is similar to current.
The magnetomotive force is produced by the coil. It is measured in
ampere-turns, the electrical current in the coil, measured in
amperes, times the number of turns of wire in the coil.
We can calculate the reluctance of the iron core and the air gap if
we know the length, the area, and the permeability of the iron and
the air. Just like in calculating the resistance of a wire, the
reluctance goes down if the cross sectional area gets bigger, and
the reluctance goes up if the length gets longer.
The permeability is a constant that depends on the material.
The permeability of free space, also known as the magnetic
constant, is 0.00000125663706 meters kilograms seconds
-
2
amperes
-2
. Rather than remember all of those clumsy units, we
have a simpler unit, thehenry, and we measure permeability in
henries per meter.
For simplicity, we will refer to permeability as the Greek letter "mu"
, and the permeability of free space as "mu sub zero",
0
, and say
that air is 1
0
and iron is about 1,000
0
.
The formula for reluctance is the length divided by the product of
the permeability and the area.
We have an iron core that is one centimeter square in area, and is
15 centimeters long, bent into a 'C' shape with a 1 centimeter air
gap. The reluctance of the iron core is 15 centimeters divided by
1,000 times one square centimeter. The reluctance of the air gap is
1 centimeter divided by 1 times 1 square centimeter. We add the
two together to get the reluctance of the entire magnetic circuit.
The iron core comes to about 1.5 henries per meter, and the air gap
comes to about 100.
Now we can calculate the magnetic flux in our magnetic circuit. Flux
is measured in Webers.
Suppose we have just one loop in our coil, and we have 1 ampere of
current going through the coil. We thus have 1 ampere-turn of
magnetomotive force.
Dividing one ampere by the total reluctance of the circuit, we
get0.0000000123806607 webers.
That is the total flux. We also measure the flux density, that is, the
flux per square meter (called B). Webers per square meter is a unit
known as the tesla. We have 0.000123806607 teslas in the air gap
of our our one-turn electromagnet.
If we had 5,000 turns of wire in our coil, we would have 5,000 times
the flux density, or 0.619033035 teslas in the air gap of our our
5,000-turn electromagnet.
Our little 'C' shaped magnet has room for a coil about 3 centimeters
long and 4 centimeters wide. If we use 28 gauge wire (0.33
millimeters in diameter), we can get about 90 turns per layer, and
about 120 layers, for a total of about 10,000 turns. 28 gauge wire
can handle 1.4 amperes of current (more if we cool the coil with
water or liquid helium). So, our magnet is now up to 1.7 teslas, and
runs very hot.
The average length of one turn of wire in our coil is about 10
centimeters. We have 10,000 turns, so that is one kilometer of wire.
A kilometer of 28 gauge wire has 213 ohms of resistance. To get
1.4 amperes through 213 ohms of resistance takes just under 300
volts.
We have calculated flux and flux density of our coil. Now we need
the magnetic field strength. We start with the magnetomotive force
we discussed earlier, which is simply the number of ampere-turns in
our coil. We have 1.4 amperes, and 10,000 turns, so we have
14,000 ampere-turns of magnetomotive force. The magnetic field
strength is the magnetomotive force divided by the length of the
magnetic circuit, which in our example is 16 centimeters. So the
magnetic field strength (called H) is 14,000 ampere-turns/16
centimeters, or 875 ampere-turns per centimeter.
So far we have been discussing the 'C' shaped magnet. The simpler
magnet works the same way, but the length of the iron core is now
8 centimeters, and the length of the air gap has increased
considerably.
If we assume for the moment that the air gap is now the same
length as the iron core (each is now 8 centimeters), we
get 0.22 teslas, and it still runs very hot. The magnetomotive force
has not changed (still 14,000 ampere-turns), but the flux has
dropped considerably, since the extra 7 centimeters of air gap has a
lot more reluctance.
However, the air gap is actually larger than 8 centimeters. The
magnetic flux in the iron stays pretty much entirely in the iron. This
is because up to the saturation point of the iron, it is a very good
conductor of magnetic flux. Air, on the other hand, is a poor
conductor, and the flux spreads out over a large area, making the
average path length larger.
Permanent magnets have the same units of strength and flux. A
permanent magnet with a flux density of 1.32 tesla (such as an N42
neodymium-iron-boron magnet) has the same flux density as our 'C'
shaped magnet if we reduce the current to 1.067 amperes.
The same permanent magnet has a magnetic field strength of
11,000 ampere-turns per centimeter. This is 12.5 times as strong as
our electromagnet. We would need to add more current or more
windings, or reduce the length of the magnetic circuit to get the
same strength as the permanent magnet. Of course, we could do
some combination of the three.
In a practical electromagnet, this is difficult. Reducing the length of
the circuit means that there will be less room for the coil. Adding
turns means we need a longer magnetic circuit to hold them. Adding
current means that we need a fatter wire, which means we get
fewer turns in the same space. You can see why people choose to
cool their electromagnets with water or cryogenic liquids. It allows
you to use more current without increasing the diameter of the
wire.
What the magnetic field strength means in terms of our permanent
magnet is simple. It is the strength of an electromagnet needed to
demagnetize the permanent magnet.