Force of interaction between magnets

In summary, a student is looking for help calculating the force between two magnets when the clearance between these two is around .5 cm. He notes that the force depends on the geometry and size of the magnets' ends, and recommends computational analysis as the best way to calculate it.
  • #1
akashverma
34
0
hi,

I'm a student and i have an electromagnet and a bar magnet paced head on coaxially and i want to calculate the force between these two when the distance is around 0.5 cm. please help I'm unable to find anything useful after browsing various websites.
Thanks in advance.
 
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  • #2
akashverma said:
hi,

I'm a student and i have an electromagnet and a bar magnet paced head on coaxially and i want to calculate the force between these two when the distance is around 0.5 cm. please help I'm unable to find anything useful after browsing various websites.
Thanks in advance.

This problem definitely requires computational analysis. It's the very fact that matter is composed of atomic particles (hard particles) and their distribution it's what makes net forces in space. Without finite element method we actually couldn't make aproximations to engineering problems that seems impossible to solve by conventional math. My conclusion is that you need to apply finite element method to accurately solve this kind of problem. But you have also to define properties of the magnets, their composition and so on... Surely computational analysis is needed.Gravity problems themselves are easily solved accurately enough because planet Earth is much bigger than bodies such as ours and we can plot forces like being in the same direction. But that is an illusion. That only gives us the chance to predict bodies behavior in an easy way by conventional math but it has it's uncertaintities.
 
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  • #3
inelwk22 said:
This problem definitely requires computational analysis. It's the very fact that matter is composed of atomic particles (hard particles) and their distribution it's what makes net forces in space. Without finite element method we actually couldn't make aproximations to engineering problems that seems impossible to solve by conventional math. My conclusion is that you need to apply finite element method to accurately solve this kind of problem. But you have also to define properties of the magnets, their composition and so on... Surely computational analysis is needed.


Gravity problems themselves are easily solved accurately enough because planet Earth is much bigger than bodies such as ours and we can plot forces like being in the same direction. But that is an illusion. That only gives us the chance to predict bodies behavior in an easy way by conventional math but it has it's uncertaintities.



sir I'm highly obliged that you sincerely participated in my problem and shared your knowledge but as i said earlier I'm a student and have not enough resources so now what way should i choose for the computational analysis so that i can solve this problem.
 
  • #4
The force depends on the geometry and size of the ends of the magnetss .
What are these? If the ends are flat, I could tell you how to proceed if I knew their areas.
 
  • #5
If you don't put the magnets not too close to each other, you can treat it as dipole-dipole interaction. The formulae are found in some textbooks on electromagnetism. I'm pretty sure, Jackson will have it somewhere. You find the potential as well as the force. The potential is more save concerning the force on which dipole is written down; I've not checked by taking the gradient of the potential which force is exactly quoted (I hate the notation [itex]\vec{F}_{ab}[/itex]; I'm never sure whether they mean the force on a due to b or vice versa ;-), and the notation may change from one book/paper/website to the other).
 
  • #6
Meir Achuz said:
The force depends on the geometry and size of the ends of the magnetss .
What are these? If the ends are flat, I could tell you how to proceed if I knew their areas.

Shape of both electromagnet and the permanent magnet is cylindrical with flat circular ends and the area can be varied according to desired result.
At this moment the best process for the calculation is computational analysis, if i want to do it through a code then i need to know the expression for the same otherwise i need to work on a software which can make such calculations but don't know any of them.
 
  • #7
vanhees71 said:
If you don't put the magnets not too close to each other, you can treat it as dipole-dipole interaction. The formulae are found in some textbooks on electromagnetism. I'm pretty sure, Jackson will have it somewhere. You find the potential as well as the force. The potential is more save concerning the force on which dipole is written down; I've not checked by taking the gradient of the potential which force is exactly quoted (I hate the notation [itex]\vec{F}_{ab}[/itex]; I'm never sure whether they mean the force on a due to b or vice versa ;-), and the notation may change from one book/paper/website to the other).

In my case i want to calculate the repulsion force between two magnets when the clearance between these two are around 1-5 mm. Is there any expression through which i can calculate the same??
 
  • #8
If the distance between the parallel faces is small compared to their diameters, you can treat them the same way you would two uniformly charged sheets. This gives [itex]F=2\pi MM'A[/itex], where M is the magnetization and A the smaller area. This is in Gaussian units where [itex]B=H+4\pi M[/itex] with B and H in gauss..
 
  • #9
Meir Achuz said:
If the distance between the parallel faces is small compared to their diameters, you can treat them the same way you would two uniformly charged sheets. This gives [itex]F=2\pi MM'A[/itex], where M is the magnetization and A the smaller area. This is in Gaussian units where [itex]B=H+4\pi M[/itex] with B and H in gauss..
i can't take this approximation as the area is also about 50 mm which is comparable to the distance
 
  • #10
What does "the area is also about 50 mm" mean. Do you mean 50 mm^2?
If so, the approximation would not be that bad for d=1mm.
For d~ 5 mm, it would be like the force between two uniformly charged plates with surface charge densities
M and M'. This is a difficult but solvable problem using Legendre polynomials.
 
  • #11
Meir Achuz said:
What does "the area is also about 50 mm" mean. Do you mean 50 mm^2?
If so, the approximation would not be that bad for d=1mm.
For d~ 5 mm, it would be like the force between two uniformly charged plates with surface charge densities
M and M'. This is a difficult but solvable problem using Legendre polynomials.

So can i take "F=2πMM′A" as a good approximation when the distance between them is increased to 5 mm. Thanks for this valuable answer and but i don't understand how to use legendre polynomials for this.

And also what is the effect of the second face (apposite poles) of the magnet as it tends to decrease the force which is not taken into consideration in the aforesaid formula.
 
  • #12
akashverma said:
So can i take "F=2πMM′A" as a good approximation when the distance between them is increased to 5 mm. Thanks for this valuable answer and but i don't understand how to use legendre polynomials for this. And also what is the effect of the second face (apposite poles) of the magnet as it tends to decrease the force which is not taken into consideration in the aforesaid formula.
If the area is 25mm^2, and d=5 mm, it is not a good approximation to use the simple formula.
It should work for d up to about 2 mm.
And also what is the effect of the second face (apposite poles) of the magnet as it tends to decrease the force which is not taken into consideration in the aforesaid formula.

I assume the second faces are far enough away to be neglected. If necessary, they could be included as point magnetic charges of magnitude MA.
 
  • #13
Meir Achuz said:
If the area is 25mm^2, and d=5 mm, it is not a good approximation to use the simple formula.
It should work for d up to about 2 mm.
And also what is the effect of the second face (apposite poles) of the magnet as it tends to decrease the force which is not taken into consideration in the aforesaid formula.

I assume the second faces are far enough away to be neglected. If necessary, they could be included as point magnetic charges of magnitude MA.

To simplify this problem I'm increasing area to 250mm^2 while the distance is kept 5mm but in this case if i don't make force as a function of distance then it will exert the same but apposite force as exerted by first pole/face on the other magnet which will give net force equals to zero.

It would be very helpful if i get an expression for force as a function of distance between two magnets for calculating the force exerted by the end face while the force by the front face can be calculated by considering the assumption told by you earlier.
 
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  • #14
How long are the magnetls? I thought they were long. If not, it is much more complicated.
 
  • #15
Meir Achuz said:
How long are the magnetls? I thought they were long. If not, it is much more complicated.

The length of electromagnet is around 60 cm and that for permanent magnet is about 30cm.

these are the maxm. length so that you can choose an approximation which suits this condition.
 
  • #16
With that length, you can neglect any effect of the back faces.
for d/R (d=distance between the magnets, and R= radius of the smaller face) less than about 1/4, you can use the simple formula. As d/R gets large the force decreases in a complicated calculation.
 
  • #17
Meir Achuz said:
With that length, you can neglect any effect of the back faces.
for d/R (d=distance between the magnets, and R= radius of the smaller face) less than about 1/4, you can use the simple formula. As d/R gets large the force decreases in a complicated calculation.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me but what is the percentage error would i likely to get when using "F=2∏MM'A" by taking d/r around 1/10
 
  • #18
akashverma said:
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me but what is the percentage error would i likely to get when using "F=2∏MM'A" by taking d/r around 1/10
That would be difficult to tell without making the more exact, but difficult, calculation of the force between 2 charged discs. Incidentally, what is usually called the 'strength' of a magnet in gauss is given by 2##\pi## M.
 
  • #19
Meir Achuz said:
That would be difficult to tell without making the more exact, but difficult, calculation of the force between 2 charged discs. Incidentally, what is usually called the 'strength' of a magnet in gauss is given by 2##\pi## M.

To calculate M i used "M=(B-B/(Km*mu))/4π
where, Km = relative permiability of the material and mu= permiability of the space taking all of them in gauss. In the similar way M' is also calculated.
when putting these value in force equation and also keeping the smaller area in CGS units i.e mm^2
then the force obtained would be in dyne??
 
  • #21
  • #22
I'm not sure if you can do this, but assuming you created the magnetic field with a solenoid maybe treat that that like a cylindrical bar magnet and then try to manipulate the equations to fit to that situation.
Just a thought, hope that helps!
 
  • #23
Dublious said:
I'm not sure if you can do this, but assuming you created the magnetic field with a solenoid maybe treat that that like a cylindrical bar magnet and then try to manipulate the equations to fit to that situation.
Just a thought, hope that helps!

But on that wiki link there is no formula even for calculation of force between two bar magnets which are not identical
 
  • #24
It looks like each of the independent values are squared so it seems like instead of a squared value, you just multiply both together and that would be the equivalent expression. This might be making to many assumptions but it might give a good estimate.
Hope this helps!
 
  • #25
Dublious said:
It looks like each of the independent values are squared so it seems like instead of a squared value, you just multiply both together and that would be the equivalent expression. This might be making to many assumptions but it might give a good estimate.
Hope this helps!
are you certain for this?? I'm using "F=2∏MM'A"
 
  • #26
I am not certain, it just a instinctual guess from the formula assuming they set it up to be similar. I do not have to much experience in this area, but I figured it was worth sharing and might help.
Sorry to not be of more assistance!
 
  • #27
Dublious said:
I am not certain, it just a instinctual guess from the formula assuming they set it up to be similar. I do not have to much experience in this area, but I figured it was worth sharing and might help.
Sorry to not be of more assistance!

No problem and thanks for your participation.
 
  • #28
akashverma said:
To calculate M i used "M=(B-B/(Km*mu))/4π
where, Km = relative permiability of the material and mu= permiability of the space taking all of them in gauss. In the similar way M' is also calculated.
when putting these value in force equation and also keeping the smaller area in CGS units i.e mm^2
then the force obtained would be in dyne??
You CANNOT use permeability when talking about magnets.
The CGS unit of area is cm^2. That is what the c means.
 
  • #29
The formula ##F=B^2A/2\mu_0## on wikipedia is the same as my formula.
To go from SI to gaussian units, set ##\mu_0/4\pi## to1.
Then, if ##B=4\pi M##, you get my formula ##F=2\pi MM'##.
If the magnetic field between the two faces is B, each with M and M', then ##B=2\pi (M+M')##.
If the field is B outside an isolated face, then ##B=2\pi M##. That is, each face gives ##2\pi M##.
You CANNOT use permeability.
 
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  • #30
Meir Achuz said:
The formula ##F=B^2A/2\mu_0## on wikipedia is the same as my formula.
To go from SI to gaussian units, set ##\mu_0/4\pi## to1.
Then, if ##B=4\pi M##, you get my formula ##F=2\pi MM'##.
If the magnetic field between the two faces is B, each with M and M', then ##B=2\pi (M+M')##.
If the field is B outside an isolated face, then ##B=2\pi M##. That is, each face gives ##2\pi M##.
You CANNOT use permeability.
In SI units ##B=u_0(H+M)## then accordingly when converted to gauss gives ##B=4π(H+M)## but according to your formula ##B=4πM## which I'm unable to understand.
Also how you get ##B=2πM## as I'm unable to find it from any other source.
 
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  • #31
The flat end of a bar magnet acts like a uniformly charge sheet with surface charge ##\sigma_m=M##,in the same way that the end of an electrically polarized rod has a surface charge ##\sigma=P##. Then, just as
##E=2\pi\sigma## just outside a charged surface, ##H=2\pi\sigma_m=2\pi M##, and B=H outside the magnet.
If this doesn't help, you may have to read a book. Also, read my post #29 carefully
 
  • #32
Meir Achuz said:
The flat end of a bar magnet acts like a uniformly charge sheet with surface charge ##\sigma_m=M##,in the same way that the end of an electrically polarized rod has a surface charge ##\sigma=P##. Then, just as
##E=2\pi\sigma## just outside a charged surface, ##H=2\pi\sigma_m=2\pi M##, and B=H outside the magnet.
If this doesn't help, you may have to read a book. Also, read my post #29 carefully
Thanks for the feedback. But in the formation of your expression you have taken ##B=2\pi(M+M')=4\pi M## i.e ##M=M'## but if we go for derivation of the force expression by using ##B=2\pi(M+M')## for two different M and M' we get ##F=1/2{π(M^2+M'^2+2MM')A}.
Also please refer me a good literature for this.
 
  • #33
Last edited by a moderator:

1. What is the force of interaction between two magnets?

The force of interaction between two magnets is known as the magnetic force. It is a non-contact force that occurs between magnets due to their magnetic fields.

2. How is the force of interaction between magnets calculated?

The force of interaction between magnets can be calculated using the formula F = (μ0 * m1 * m2) / (4π * r^2), where μ0 is the permeability of free space, m1 and m2 are the magnetic moments of the two magnets, and r is the distance between them.

3. Does the force of interaction between magnets depend on their polarity?

Yes, the force of interaction between magnets depends on their polarity. Like poles (north and north or south and south) repel each other, while opposite poles (north and south) attract each other.

4. What factors can affect the force of interaction between magnets?

The force of interaction between magnets can be affected by the strength of the magnets, their distance from each other, and the orientation of their magnetic fields.

5. Can the force of interaction between magnets be increased?

Yes, the force of interaction between magnets can be increased by using stronger magnets or by decreasing the distance between them. Additionally, arranging the magnets in a specific configuration, such as a horseshoe shape, can also increase the force of interaction.

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