IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 36, NO.

1, JANUARY 2000

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Letters__________________________________________________________________________________________
Comments on Energy Stored in Permanent Magnets
Peter Campbell, Member, IEEE

AbstractA recent paper on the energy stored in permanent magnets was based upon some erroneous assumptions. These comments are presented in an effort to explain a few truths about the energy exchanges in a magnetic circuit containing a permanent magnet. Index TermsDemagnetization, permanent magnets, stored energy, work done.

but the latter reference correctly identifies this area swept by the load line as the change in total energy. II. ENERGY STORED IN A PERMANENT MAGNET For a better understanding of permanent magnet energy, it is probably best not to use (1) as the starting point. Rather, the fundamental macroscopic property of a magnet is its magnetization , and the energy stored by a magnetic field in volume of a magnet is well known [3] to be (3) To account for the change in energy caused by a variation in , either during a magnets initial magnetization or its subsequent delivery of energy into an air gap, (3) becomes (4) only, and is The first term involves change in applied field the work done by the applied field. The second term involves only, and is the energy change in material magnetization due to reversals of magnetic moments. It is now possible to introduce the resulting flux density via the magnets demagnetization characteristic (5) It has been shown [4] that (5) can be used to reduce (4) to a relationship involving just and , expressing the change in magnet energy per unit volume between two states and as product the change in the (6) It is important to note in the derivation [4] of (6) from (4) that the two original terms maintain their identities throughout, so the second term is still the change in energy due to the materials magnetization, i.e., the energy stored per unit volume in the magnet material as was defined by (1). Because the limits of integration in (6) represent two dissimilar states for the magnet, the sum of applied field and magnet energies is not zero, but has product. The change in a potential energy value equal to the energy stored per unit volume in a magnet may be represented as an integration along the demagnetization characteristic, for example from the remanence state to a general second quadrant state as shown in Fig. 1. As the magnets operating point moves further into the second quadrant, the area increases as the net alignment of the magnetic moments is further

I. INTRODUCTION N THEIR recent paper, Lovatt and Watterson [1] introduced their discussion on permanent magnets with the statement that there is still some confusion about the energy stored in the magnet. The energy stored in a permanent magnet of volume is correctly identified as (1) However, the lower limit of this integration is not mathematically arbitrary as that paper suggests, and it cannot then be assumed that the magnets energy is zero at the remanence , . To understand this, i.e., for the magnet in a keeper with simply consider that a magnet in a keeper which is operating has effectively been fully magnetized, and the most at its common method of doing this would have been to apply a large current pulse to a coil (or coils) mounted on the keeper. The current pulse has therefore driven the magnet up its virgin magnetization curve, and then allowed it to settle on its demagnetization curve at the remanence . There has therefore been a considerable input of energy to initially magnetize the permanent magnet materialwork done by the applied magnetizing field. The conclusion of Lovatt and Wattersons paper is the derivation of the energy stored in a magnet operating on its recoil line as of relative permeability (2) This is incorrect because of the arbitrarily wrong initial assumption of zero magnet energy at . The authors [1, Fig. 4] illustrates what they believe to be an incorrect definition of stored magnet energy originating from in Deodhar et al. [2, Fig. 3],
Manuscript received March 31, 1999; revised October 12, 1999. The author is with Applied Technology, Magnequench International, Inc., Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-4827 USA (e-mail: peter@magnetweb.com). Publisher Item Identifier S 0018-9464(00)00466-0.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 36, NO. 1, JANUARY 2000

Fig. 1. Change in energy stored per unit volume in a magnet, from the remanence state b to a general second quadrant state c. Fig. 2. Linear representation of two adjacent magnets in a variable reluctance actuator, with rotor in its neutral position.

disrupted, and there is an increasing decline ( energy due to the materials magnetization.

) in the

III. EXAMPLE: A VARIABLE RELUCTANCE ACTUATOR An illustration of the energy stored in a permanent magnet is provided by this simple example of a variable reluctance actuator. In a popular configuration, a disk-shaped permanent magnet rotor is axially magnetized with a multipole array. A linearized representation of two of these poles is shown in Fig. 2, between salient poles of the two stator halves (which are magnetically connected out of this diagrams plane). The soft iron stator poles carry coils, but when these are not excited, the rotor settles into its neutral position shown in Fig. 2. The demagnetization characteristic for both permanent magnets is illustrated in Fig. 3, together with the load line representing their condition with the coils unexcited and the rotor neutralan equal volume of each magnet is under the influence of the stator poles. With the coils excited with the polarity shown, we know intuitively that the rotor will move to the left in this diagram, due to the attraction of opposite poles and the repulsion of like poles. In terms of the energy stored in each permanent magnet, the coil excitation reinforces the field in the remagnetized pole, while it weakens the field in the demagnetized pole. The load line for the former moves to the right in the - diagram, while line for the latter moves to the left, both lateral displacements being equal since both magnets experience the same apare plied field. The changes in energy in each magnet shown as shaded areas in Fig. 3, the energy lost per unit volume of the demagnetized pole clearly being greater than the energy gained per unit volume of the remagnetized pole. To minimize the total change in magnet energy, the volume of the remagnetized pole must increase while of the demagnetized pole must decrease, and this determines the distance by which the rotor assembly must move to the left. The proper application of stored magnet energy predicts a movement of the rotor that we know to occur.

Fig. 3. Operating condition for both magnets of Fig. 2, without (A ) and with (B ; C ) field applied by stator coil.

well known that (1) can be used to yield the energy stored in an as air gap of volume (7) effectively represents the entire load on the Assuming that magnet, then magnetic circuit equations can be used to transform this into the magnets parameters (8) While a permanent magnets major demagnetization characteristic is represented by (5), once the magnet operates on a recoil line of relative permeability , this changes to (9) is the remanence of the recoil line, not necesIn this case, sarily that for the fully magnetized material. Combining (8) and (9) yields (10) Noting that a magnet needs to operate in the second (or third) quadrant to deliver its energy to an air gap, i.e., that is negative in (10), this expression reveals that the magnet energy delivered to the gap passes through a maximum at some point in the second quadrant, as well described by Parker [5]. Comparison of (2) and (10) reveals that the source of Lovatt and Wattersons confusion is that, while the energy stored in is not zero, the energy delivered to a gap a magnet at will in fact be zero.

IV. ENERGY DELIVERED TO AN AIR GAP Lovatt and Wattersons concluding equation (2) is actually more akin to the energy stored in an air gap than a magnet. It is

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V. CONCLUSION In general, one needs to consider both magnet and air gap energies to determine the performance of an electromechanical device, as Deodhar et al. [2] do in their treatment of cogging torque in permanent magnet motors. The change in energy stored per unit volume in a magnet has been illustrated in Fig. 1 as the area from the remanence state to a general second quadrant state . Between the same states, the energy released into the air gap is also a function of the magnets parameters according to (8). The area on the - diagram associated with to yield the total this additional energy may be added to area swept by the load line, demonstrating that this is indeed the total change in energy as described by Deodhar et al. [2], and has not been incorrectly defined as stored energy density as proposed in Lovatt and Wattersons [1, Fig. 4]. Having explained the total energy change which would be needed for the subsequent calculation of force or torque in an electromechanical device, it is worth adding a word of caution. All of the previous discussion is limited to the condition that , and are aligned throughout the magnet volume . If the fundamental relationship for energy stored is expressed at any specific location within , then an equation like (3) should contain the additional factor cos , where is the angle between and [3]. By considering only the entire volume , we everywhere. Furthermore, by inteare assuming that grating a magnets energy using (5), it should be understood that this demagnetization characteristic, and all of its associ-

ated recoil lines, are obtained by measuring , and hence in a unique direction throughout , usually the preferred magnetic direction. When a magnet is used in a real application, this is rarely true throughout its entire volume, and an anisotropic magnet cannot accurately be represented solely by its major axis demagnetization curve. REFERENCES
[1] H. C. Lovatt and P. A. Watterson, Energy stored in permanent magnets, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 35, pp. 505507, Jan. 1999. [2] R. P. Deodhar, D. A. Staton, T. M. Jahns, and T. J. E. Miller, Prediction of cogging torque using the flux-MMF diagram technique, IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 32, pp. 569576, May/June 1996. [3] R. M. Bozorth, Ferromagnetism. New York: Van Nostrand, 1951, pp. 481481. [4] P. Campbell, Permanent Magnet Materials and Their Application. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994, pp. 1617. [5] R. J. Parker, Advances in Permanent Magnetism. New York: Wiley, 1990, pp. 141143.

Peter Campbell (M78) received the B.Sc degree in 1970 and the Ph.D. degree in 1975 in electrical engineering from the University of Warwick, U.K. He also received the M.A. degree in 1974 from the University of Cambridge, U.K. He is Director of Applied Technology with Magnequench International, Inc., at its Technology Center in Research Triangle Park, NC. He has also been President of Princeton Electro-Technology, Inc., NJ, since 1985. Prior to that, he was President of PA Technology, Princeton, NJ, and has been an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California, and an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, U.K., where he was also a Fellow of Downing College.