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Please explain what is mutual inductance?

Please explain what is mutual inductance?

Grade:11

1 Answers

shashank Saxena
13 Points
15 years ago

Mutual inductance


Faraday's law tells us that a changing magnetic flux will induce an emf in a coil. The induced emf for a coil with N loops is:

 

 
Picture two coils next to each other, end to end. If the first coil has a current going through it,a magnetic field will be produced, and a magnetic flux will pass through the second coil. Changing the current in the first coil changes the flux through the second, inducing an emf in the second coil. This is known as mutual inductance, inducing an emf in one coil by changing the current through another. The induced emf is proportional to the change in flux,which is proportional to the change in current in the first coil. The induced emf can thus be written as:

 
The constant M is the mutual inductance, which depends on various factors, including the area and number of turns in coil 2, the distance between the two coils (the further apart, the less flux passes through coil 2), the relative orientation of the two coils, the number of turns / unit length in the first coil (because that's what the magnetic field produced by the first coil depends on), and whether the two coils have cores made from ferromagentic material. In other words, M is rather complicated. What's far more important in the equation above is that the emf induced in the second coil is proportional to the change in current in the first.

This effect can be put to practical use. One way to use it is in a transformer, which we'll discuss below. Another is to use it in an ammeter. Conventional ammeters are incorporated directly into circuits, but ammeters don't have to be placed in the current path for alternating current. If a loop connected to a meter is placed around a wire with an AC current in it, an emf will be induced in the loop because of the changing field from the wire, and that will produce a current in the loop, and meter, proportional to the current in the wire.

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