Transformer Core – Magnetic Field in Air Gap

magnetics

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I am trying to calculate the magnetic field, Hg, and have been looking these formulas. I would like to know if I am on the right track, as something is not working out for me.
From these with a uniform area, the area of the core, Ac is equal to the area of the air gap, Ag. The flux density in the core, Bc, is equal to the flux density of the gap, Bc?

And to work out Hg, it is Bg/Uo, Uo the permeability of free space? And similarly for Hc the magnetic field in the core is Bc/u, u the permeability of the core?

I am looking at the last formula for the magnetic motive force, Ni = Hclc + Hglg
But in my workings I do not get it to match and I think I have gone wrong somewhere or interpreted something wrong.

Any help and explanation would be appreciated.

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Best Answer

Your formulas are correct. You copied those from a good source :-) As for the Hc, just note that the flux lines go round the entire magnetic circuit of core and gap, so that the flux density, which is B, will be equal in core and gap. Hence:

B = μ0 * Hg = μ0 * μr * Hc

Thus:

Hc = Hg / μr

As μr for a ferrite or iron core may be well over 100 or 1000, Hc is correspondingly much smaller than Hg. Most often you can neglect Hc * Lc compared to Hg * Lg, but this depends on your μr. In any case, the sum of all H * L parts equals your Ampere-Turns:

4 * 800 = Hc * 0.132 + Hg * 0.01

        = Hg * (0.132 / μr + 0.01)

You see that the term 0.132/μr may be overshadowed by 0.01 only if μr is in the thousands.

Now you will be able to compute your H in the air gap given the μr of your core.

As for the energy, that could not be stored in the core as noted by some commenters: the energy per unit of volume is about H * B / 2. So if there is no air gap, all energy is stored in the core. But because of μr being large, and B must be below saturation at e.g. 0.3 Tesla, H should not be very large, so you should not apply many turns and/or many amperes. On the other hand, if you apply lots of Ampere-Turns and get into saturation, the HB product and the stored amount of energy will rise as if you had an (expensive) air core.

With air gap, use the same math as above to arrive at the amounts of energy stored in core and gap.