Magnetic flux through a coil
How much magnetic flux links a coil sitting in a field of a given strength, area and angle?
- Φ
- Magnetic flux, Wb
- B
- Field strength, T
- A
- Area, m²
- θ
- Angle from the normal, °
LaTeX
Φ = B \cdot A \cdot \cos(θ)
Result
Φ
Magnetic flux
500 µWb
The flux linking the coil. Its rate of change, not its size, is what induces a voltage.
LaTeX
500\,\mathrm{µWb} = 0.5\,\mathrm{T} \cdot 10\,\mathrm{cm²} \cdot \cos(0\,\mathrm{°})
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
- Φ
- Magnetic flux, Wb
- B
- Field strength, T
- A
- Area, m²
- θ
- Angle from the normal, °
LaTeX
Φ = B \cdot A \cdot \cos(θ)
The formula behind the curve
- Φ
- Magnetic flux, Wb
- B
- Field strength, T
- A
- Area, m²
- θ
- Angle from the normal, °
LaTeX
Φ = B \cdot A \cdot \cos(θ)
Method
- Convert the field to tesla and the area to square metres. Flux is a product of the two in SI, and gauss and square centimetres are both a hundred-to-one from that.
- Convert the angle from degrees to radians.
- Multiply the field by the area and by the cosine of the angle. Face-on (0°) gives the full product; edge-on (90°) gives zero, however strong the field is.
Assumptions
- The field is uniform across the coil's area. A real EPG field is not, especially near a pole face; this treats the coil as small enough, or the field as even enough, that one number describes it.
- The coil is a flat loop (or a stack of identical turns, each contributing the same flux) rather than a wound solenoid threading its own field.
- No fringing or leakage is modelled. A real magnetic circuit loses some flux around the edges of the gap; this is the ideal figure.