Electromagnets Investigation

Electromagnets Investigation

Planning.

Electromagnets could be made stronger by varying some factors of the

electromagnets. The different factors that affect the strength of

electromagnets are the temperature, amount of current passed through

the wire, the length of the core, the thickness of the wire used for

the coils and the number of turns of the electromagnet.

An electromagnet can be made by coiling up a length of wire around a

piece of metal and passing an electric current through the wire, this

creates a magnetic field through the coil, and hence an electromagnet

is formed.

Following that, I am going to investigate how changing the current

will affect the strength of an electromagnet; I will be varying the

current size, all other variables will be kept constant.

I predict that the current will affect the strength of the

electromagnet and the more current is passed into the coil, the

stronger the electromagnet will be. In other words, the strength of

the electromagnet is directly proportional to the current passed

through the wire. And the graph of results will probably look like

this:

The reason for this is that a magnet is formed when most of the

domains of a metal are lined up facing the same direction creating a

force or a field. The more domains that are facing the same direction

the more force is created and the stronger the magnetic field. The

induction of electric current through the wire coiled around an

electromagnet also causes the domains of the electromagnet core to

line up in the same direction. Logically, increasing the current in

the wire would result to more domains pointing to the same direction,

resulting to a stronger magnetic force; therefore a stronger

electro-magnet is formed.

I have carried out a couple of trials to help decide what evidence to

collect. I used a power pack to supply the current, copper wire of

45cmto make the coil, little nails for the electromagnet to pick up, a

big steel nail to form the core of the electromagnet.