Magneto Statics

Magnetostatics is a branch of electrical engineer which study   about the static magnetic fields. In the study of electrostatics, the charges are stable or stationary, while here, the currents are motionless or static. When it turns out magnetostatics is an excellent approximation even as the currents are not stationary as long as the currents don’t  alternate rapidly.

Applications:

Magnetostatics as a special case of Maxwell's equations

Starting from Maxwell's equations, the following simplifications can be made:

• ignore any electrostatic charge
• ignore the electric field
  • presume the magnetic field is constant with respect to time

The electrostatic field exists due to the static charges i.e. charges at rest. The magnetic field exists due to a permanent magnet, which is a natural magnet .But in electromagnetic engineering a link between electric and magnetic field is required to be studied. Such a link is absent with magnetic field due to a natural magnet. The scientist Oersted has discovered the relation between electric and magnetic fields in 1820. Scientist Oersted stated that when the charges are in motion, they are surrounded by a magnetic field. The charges in motion i.e. flow of charges constitutes an electric current. Thus a current carrying conductor is always surrounded by a magnetic field. If such a current flow is steady i.e. time invariant then the magnetic field produced is a steady magnetic field which is also a time invariant. The direct current (DC) is a steady flow of current hence magnetic field produced by a conductor carrying a DC current is a static steady magnetic field. The study of steady magnetic field, existing in a given space, produced due to the flow of direct current through a conductor is called magnetostatics. The various other concepts like E.M.F. induced, force experienced by a conductor, motoring action, transformer action etc are dependent on the magnetostatics. Hence the study of steady magnetic field i.e. magnetostatics plays an important role in the engineering electromagnetics.

Questionnaire:

• What is magnetostatics?