Effects of Water on Magnetic Field Outside a Finite Solenoid?

AI Thread Summary
Calculating the magnetic field outside a finite solenoid, particularly perpendicular to it, is challenging and not well-documented. Ampere's law is limited to ideal solenoids, while the Biot-Savart law can be used to derive the magnetic field around a single current loop. The magnetic field can be approximated by treating the solenoid as a series of rings and summing their contributions. References such as Jackson's "Classical Electrodynamics" and Franklin's "Classical Electromagnetism" provide relevant equations. The discussion highlights the complexity of the problem and the need for further exploration in literature.
bjornmag
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
I can`t seem to find any information on how to calculate the magnetic field outside a real finite solenoid. I do not need the field on-axis, but rather perpendicular to the solenoid. Any ideas on how to proceed, or suggestions to literature?

Thanks

Indian
 
Physics news on Phys.org
bjornmag said:
I can`t seem to find any information on how to calculate the magnetic field outside a real finite solenoid. I do not need the field on-axis, but rather perpendicular to the solenoid.
You just have to use Ampere's law and add the field of all the loops in the solenoid. For a short solenoid, you can approximate with a single loop with total current = NI where N is the number of turns. But you can see that it is similar to the field some distance from two parallel wires with currents in opposite directions (ie at a distance d>>s where s is the separation between the wires) which is effectively 0 because the fields cancel.

AM
 
Ampere's law is only useful for finding the magnetic field around either a toroidal (i.e. donut) solenoid or an ideal (i.e. infinitely long, infinitely thin) solenoid, where the field is indeed zero. Outside a finite solenoid this is definitely not true (since a current outside a bar electromagnet would experience a force), at present I am trying to derive the equations from the Biot-Savart law for the magnetic field at any point around a single current loop (a solenoid with one loop and neglidgeable length). I will put these on the forum when I can (note: they will probably be in integral form), hopefully this will prove helpful.
 
O.K. so far as I know this is the equation for magnetic field at any point around a single loop of wire in the x-y plane carrying current I where your position p relative to the centre of the loop is given by:
p =xi +yj +zk , at that point the magnetic field B is given by the equation in the linked page. Unfortunately this equation is still in integral form, I will attempt to convert it into normal equation form asap.
This maybe used to give the b-field around a short solenoid by treating it as a series of rings and adding up the magnetic fields caused by each ring by using offset values of z in the attached equation (i.e. for a ring half a metre above the x-y plane change z to z-0.5 in the equation).
I hope this is useful.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v115/losseniaiel/b-field.jpg
 
Last edited:
The B field due to a current loop is given in Sect. 5.5 of Jackson "Classical Electrodynamics" and in Sect. 7.10.1 of Franklin "Classical Electromagnetism.
Similar methods can be used to find the field outside a finite solenoid.
 
Great post Miller. However i think you are wrong.

What happens when water is introduced?
 
So I know that electrons are fundamental, there's no 'material' that makes them up, it's like talking about a colour itself rather than a car or a flower. Now protons and neutrons and quarks and whatever other stuff is there fundamentally, I want someone to kind of teach me these, I have a lot of questions that books might not give the answer in the way I understand. Thanks
Back
Top