Induced EMF from a changing flux
What voltage does a coil see while the flux through it changes?
- ε
- Induced EMF, V
- N
- Turns
- ΔΦ
- Flux change, Wb
- Δt
- Time, s
LaTeX
ε = -N \frac{ΔΦ}{Δt}
Result
ε
Induced EMF
-500 mV
The voltage the coil produces while the flux is changing. Sign follows Lenz's law against the sign given for the flux change.
LaTeX
-500\,\mathrm{mV} = -50 \frac{50\,\mathrm{µWb}}{5\,\mathrm{ms}}
This result is a link — the address bar holds your numbers, so it can be pasted into a post and opened to the same answer.
What this looks like
The formula behind the curve
- ε
- Induced EMF, V
- N
- Turns
- ΔΦ
- Flux change, Wb
- Δt
- Time, s
LaTeX
ε = -N \frac{ΔΦ}{Δt}
The formula behind the curve
- ε
- Induced EMF, V
- N
- Turns
- ΔΦ
- Flux change, Wb
- Δt
- Time, s
LaTeX
ε = -N \frac{ΔΦ}{Δt}
Method
- Convert the flux change to webers and the time to seconds.
- Divide the flux change by the time to get the average rate of change over the interval — this is what dΦ/dt means for a real, discrete measurement rather than an instantaneous one.
- Multiply by the number of turns: each turn contributes its own share of the same changing flux, and the coil sees the sum.
- The minus sign is Lenz's law — the induced EMF opposes the change that made it — and only matters once a sign convention for the flux change has been chosen. The magnitude is what sizes the winding.
Assumptions
- The rate of change is treated as constant over the interval. A real pulsed field changes fastest at the edges of the pulse, so this is the average EMF, not the peak — a sharper edge gives a higher instantaneous voltage than this figure.
- Every turn links the same flux change. In a real coil, turns nearer the field source see more change than turns further out; this treats the winding as tightly bunched.
- No resistive or eddy-current loss is modelled — this is the EMF generated, not the voltage that would be measured across a loaded winding.