Version 2 as of March 19, 2013 Primary author: Joshua C.

Frechem

Experimental Determination of the Magnetic Dipole Moment

(Dated: March 19, 2013) In order to give an experimental understanding of magnets, the Magnetic Torque instrument was used to experimentally nd the magnetic dipole in various ways to give a well founded understanding of a more fundamental model of this magnetism. The rst order of business was to measure all of the constants in the setup which included the mass of the individual components that would be in the magnetic eld as well as the lengths to be used and the radius of the ball. These measurements can be seen in Figures 1 and 2. The Helmholtz coil was set up with a half-sphere holder for the cue ball that has a strong current of air coming from the bottom to suspend the cue ball in a semi-frictionless environment. This was to make sure the only forces acting on the system were the magnetic and gravitational forces. For the rst part, Magnetic torque equals gravitational torque; the cue ball was set in the holder with the air turned on. To get a curve, many data points were collected by starting out with the weight very close to the ball and incrementally moving the weight up the bar. At each distance, the amperage was turned up until the magnetic eld was just strong enough to counteract the gravitational force of the weight. This current was determined to be the point where the magnetic eld kept the weight just above the casing of the Helmholtz coil. At each of these distance intervals the current was set to this point and the magnetic eld was calculated 2 1 0 nIR using the equation: B = (R 2 +x2 )3/2 . The torque (Rmg ) was then calculated for each distance of the weight and plotted versus the magnetic eld calculated for each interval(each value of R). With analysis of the equation Rmg =B it is determined that the slope of the best t line of this data is , the Magnetic Dipole Moment. The experimental value of this experiment was found to be .4159 Am2 . For the Harmonic oscillation of a spherical pendulum, the weight and the bar was taken o of the cue ball because the object of interest is just the magnetic dipole (the cue ball in this case). Data was taken at intervals of 0.25 Amps from 0.25A to 1.00A and 0.50A intervals from 1.00A to 4.00A. As the current was changed, the strength of the magnetic eld changed causing the cue ball to act dierently in the Helmholtz coils eld. Releasing from a small allows the assumption of sin() = to hold true allowing the necessary equation to become 2 = B I . When the cue ball was released from this small angle, the magnetic eld caused an oscillation about the axis of the magnetic eld. As the current is changed, this oscillation increases or decreases with that change. To nd the period of this oscillation, the cue ball was released from a small and the time for it to complete twenty full cycles of oscillation was recorded and divided by twenty to get a more reliable 2 mr 2 period of oscillation (T).The equation T 2 = 8 was the used to determine the plot will be T 2 5B
1 vs B leaving the slope of the best t line equal to 8 5mr . This process was then repeated using a large that did not satisfy the assumption sin() = and the two values of the magnetic dipole moment were compared. The dipole moment for small was found to be .4375 Am2 while the large dipole moment was calculated to be .3679 Am2 . The last method used to nd the magnetic dipole moment was the precessional motion of a spinning sphere. In this experiment, the strobe light was turned on at a frequency of 5.1Hz and the current supplied to the coils was changed from 1.0A to 4.0A at 0.5A intervals. At each voltage, the cue ball was spun with the axis of rotation going through the handle on the ball towards the strobe light. By spinning the ball fast enough with the current OFF, there will be a point where the white dot on the handle of the cue ball will appear to stay still which was the point where the current was turned on to the desired current and the period the ball takes to precess around 360o is the precessional period. Once the precessional period for all of the currents were found, these values were divided from 2 to obtain the precessional angular velocity (rad/s). Using the equation p = B/L, the graph was determined to be p vs B so the slope would be equal to Lwhere L was the angular momentum of the ball. This procedure was repeaded using the value of 6.1Hz for the strobe frequency to see if the angular momentum changed the value of . The value of at 5.1Hz was determined to be .3761Am2 while 6.1Hz showed an increase with 3.880Am2 .
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INTRODUCTION

Magnets have always been a thing of wonder and after taking many Physics courses over the years, the concept of magnetism became clearer and clearer. However, no matter how clear the concept becomes, nothing ce-

ments the repercussions of these concepts quite as well as seeing them in action yourself. This lab was designed to demonstrate the properties of a magnetic dipole as a loop of current as well as the interactions with external magnetic elds. A dipole is exactly what it says. There are two poles with a magnetic eld running from one to

2 the other in loops that decrease in strengths as the distance from the dipole increases. When in the presence of an external magnetic eld, the poles of the dipole align itself with respect to the magnetic eld the best it can. There are factors that want to prevent the dipole from doing so. These factors are what this lab is about because these factors will be exploited to show characteristics and the strength of the dipole used in the experiment. Things such as gravity making the dipole want to act against the magnetic eld and angular momentum causing a force counteractive to the magnetic eld will help the understanding of magnets and their elds become more clear.
EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND PROCEDURE

peated with the exception of the angle the handle was released from. To test the dierence in the magnetic dipole moment caused by a larger angle, and angle of approximately 45o was used with the exact same following procedure as above. The slope of the best t lines of the 2 2 in which one only had to data sets were equal to 8 5mr solve for and get the answer. For the nal experiment, the ball was only needed without the rod and weight. The strobe light was set at 5.1Hz and the current being set rst to 1.0A which was incrementally increased by 0.5A at each data point. The cue ball was then spun so that the handle was the axis of rotation and was pointing directly at the strobe light. Once the rotation slowed down to the point where the white dot on the handle stayed still, the current was turned up to 1.0A and the time for the handle to turn 360o was recorded and the procedure was repeated in 0.5A increments with each current having three trials done to get a reliable precessional period Tp . Once the currents had been cycled through up to 4.0A, the same exact procedure was done using the strobe light frequency set to 6.1Hz. These times were divided from 2 (2 /Tp ) and graphed vs the magnetic eld (which has been calculated several times by now). The splope of the best t lines for these data sets represended /L in which L was simply multiplied across to give .

The rst step was to gure out all of the constants in the experiment. The cue ball, rod and weight were all massed and recorded for use in all three experiments. The cue balls radius was then measured along with the length of the handle sticking out of the ball. After that, the length of the rod while inserted into the cue balls handle was recorded along with the width of the weight to be used. Setting up for the rst experiment was easy enough. The cue ball was placed on the holder with the air on and the rod in the handle with the weight on the rod. The weight was then set at variable distances along the rod (distances shown on Table 1). Once the distance was recorded, the distance had to be converted to a radius from the center of the ball by adding the radius of the ball and the length of the holder to the selected distance the weight was set at. The current was then turned on and slowly increased until the tip of the rod was suspended by the magnetic eld just above the rack of the upper coil. This point is where the magnetic torque equals the gravitational torque. This process was repeated for each distance of the weight selected to get enough data points to create a graph. The slope of the best t line was equal to giving a quick and easy was of solving for the magnetic dipole moment. For the second experiment, the moment of inertia of 2 the ball was rst calculated using I = 5 mR2 which was 2 mr 2 inserted into the equation stated above (T 2 = 8 5B ). This experiment required the use of only the ball without the rod and the weight. The ball was placed on the air bearing with the air turned on. The current had to be set at dierent intervals (currents used are in Figure 2) and once the current was set to the correct current for the trial, the balls handle was oset a very small angle with respect to the vertical and released. The counting started as soon as the handle was released and the time was counted until twenty oscillations were completed. This procedure was repeated for every chosen current to create a graph with enough data points to obtain a reliable best t line. The same procedure as above was then re-

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Seen in Figure 3, the slope of the best t line was 0.4159 Am2 which was determined in the previous section to be equal to , the magnetic dipole moment. By using the equation on Figure 3, the y-intercept and the xintercept can be determined. The y-intercept was found to be 0.0005N m and the x-intercept was found to be 0.0012T (both of these results can be seen on Table 1). Putting the y-intercept equal to Rmg, the center of mass of the rod (R in this case) can be algebraicly solved for to be 0.0599m which is not the actual center of mass of the rod due to the rods placement in/on the cue ball. This value really represents the center of mass of the entire length from the center of the cue ball to the tip of 0 nIR2 1 the rod. The x-intercept can be set equal to (R 2 +x2 )3/2 to be solved for I which is the current needed to balance the rod alone. This current was calculated out to be 0.89A which makes sense due to the lighter mass of the rod without the weight on it (the current needed to balance the rod and weight when the weight was as close as possible would be nearly 2.0A. So if you take away the weight, 0.89A makes sense to be needed to balance a much lighter rod). Figures 4 and 5 show the results for experiment 2 using a small and a large respectively. Using the slopes of the indicated best t equa-

3 tions, the slopes were set equal to 8 5mr . Once this was done, the magnetic dipole moment was solved for algebraically very easily. The values of were calculated out to be: 0.4375Am2 for small and 0.3679Am2 for large . Figures 6 and 7 show the results for experiment 3 when the strobe light was set to 5.1Hz and 6.1Hz respectively. The values of the slopes were set equal to /L where L is the angular momentum that was solved for 2 using L = 2 5 mR (2 f requencyof strobe). After some algebra solving for , the values for the dipole moment were found to be: 0.3761Am2 for 5.1Hz and 0.3880Am2 for 6.1Hz.
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CONCLUSION

Through careful experimentation using a Helmholtz coil apparatus, a magnetic dipole and a rod with a small weight the magnetic dipole moment could be determined. The ultimate goal of this was to harden the concept of magnets and their interactions with other magnetic elds after being fed theoretical concepts for so long. Although the results varied a bit, the results were rather close when including all of the variables that could cause error. Done the proper way (not including the large ), the magnetic dipole moment was experimentally determined to be 0.4159Am2 , 0.4375Am2 , 0.3761Am2 and 0.3880Am2 . I included the result obtained using 6.1Hz as the strobe frequency because that frequency was still inside the range of frequencies that could be used due to the low rate of change of rotational frequency thus providing a reliable result. It can be seen that these results were all quite near each other. A possible reason for

the result from experiment 3 being of is that the current had to immediately be turned up from 0A to the desired current which introduced an inconsistent current reading and at rst a very inaccurate current reading while the other experiments already had a set current with no need to change during data acquisition. Another source of error could have been the fact that time data was taken as close as possible rather than having a machine take the time data. This automatically introduced a large amount of human error into the experiments which most likely threw o the data a bit. One nal possibility of error was high current uctuations. The longer the current was set at a high current, the hotter the current source got which cause uctuations in the current which in turn caused uctuations in the magnetic eld causing possible errors in the data(although this variable was kept track of fairly closely). For the large experiment in the second experiment, the result just showed that the assumption sin() = does not hold true when doing these calculations and showed how important it was to have used the smallest possible to get the data needed. However, with how close the results were from the average I can say that the experiment went fairly smoothly with such a large amount of human interaction (and in turn human error) in the experiment.

[1] Equation reference: Wikipedia, Helmholtz Coil, edited: 17M arch, 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtzc oil

FIG. 1: The cue ball is placed on an air bearing in which the ball has an airow underneath it causing the ball to experience a negligible amount of friction. The cue ball has radius 0.0273m and mass .1422Kg, the rod has the length(while inserted) of 0.1043m with mass 0.00085Kg, and the weight has the width 0.0100m with mass 0.00135Kg. An additional measurement is that the holder on the side of the cue ball has length 0.0120m in which is added to the rods length in calculations requiring the distance of the weight.

FIG. 2: The Helmholtz Coil used was not a perfect Helmholtz Coil in which the x value does not equal R/2 so the alternative 2 0 nIR form of the magnetic eld equation (derived from the Biot-Savart Law) was used. This equation was: B = (R 2 +x2 )3/2 where
m 0 = 1.26x106 TA , n is the number of turns in each coil, I is the current, R is the radius of the coil and x is half the distance between the two coils.

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Distance to Weight (inches) 0.5695 0.7815 1.0000 1.2500 1.5000 1.7500 2.0000 2.2500 2.5000 2.7500 3.0000 slope Magnetic Field (T) 0.0032 0.0034 0.0035 0.0037 0.0039 0.0041 0.0042 0.0044 0.0047 0.0049 0.0052 0.0012

Radius (inches) 2.3145 2.5265 2.7450 2.9950 3.2450 3.4950 3.7450 3.9950 4.2450 4.4950 4.7450 0.4159

Radius (meters) 0.0588 0.0642 0.0697 0.0761 0.0824 0.0888 0.0951 0.1015 0.1078 0.1142 0.1205 y-int

Torque Current (N-m) (A) 0.00078 2.35 0.00085 2.50 0.00092 2.62 0.00101 2.73 0.00109 2.89 0.00118 3.01 0.00126 3.11 0.00134 3.25 0.00143 3.49 0.00151 3.61 0.00160 3.89 0.0005 x-int

TABLE I: This table shows data taken for part one of the lab: determining the magnetic dipole moment by using the knowledge that the magnetic torque equals the gravitational torque. Distance is the distance of the weight from the tip of the holder while the radius is the total length from the center of the cue ball to center of the weight. Rmg is the gravitational torque cause by the weight, Current is in Amperes and the magnetic eld is in Tesla. Below the data are results from the graphical analysis of the data. The slope gives the magnetic dipole moment in Am2 while the x intercept(in Tesla) is plugged into the equation for the magnetic eld in Figure 2 to nd the current needed to balance the rod alone(in Amperes). The y intercept(in Nm) is plugged into Rmg to nd the rods center of mass(which when this refers to the Rod s it is referring to the length from the center of the sphere to the center of mass of the system which does not coincide with the center of mass of the rod due to the addition of other parts on the cue ball.

Small Theta 0.25 A 0.50 A 20P eriods(s) 66.66 45.92 T (s) 3.33 2.30 T 2 (s2 ) 11.09 5.29 BF ield(T ) 0.0003 0.0007 B 1 (T 1 ) 2962.96 1481.48

0.75 A 38.15 1.91 3.65 0.0010 987.65

1.00 A 33.10 1.66 2.76 0.0014 740.74

1.50 A 27.16 1.36 1.85 0.0020 493.83

2.00 A 23.35 1.17 1.37 0.0027 370.37

2.50 A 20.88 1.04 1.08 0.0034 296.30

3.00 A 18.99 0.95 0.90 0.0041 246.91

3.50 A 17.62 0.88 0.77 0.0047 211.64

4.00 A 16.50 0.83 0.69 0.0054 184.19

Large Theta 0.25 A 0.50 A 20P eriods(s) 72.30 51.79 T (s) 3.61 2.59 T 2 (s2 ) 13.07 6.71 BF ield(T ) 0.0003 0.0007 B 1 (T 1 ) 2962.96 1481.48

0.75 A 43.17 2.16 4.66 0.0010 987.65

1.00 A 36.21 1.81 3.28 0.0014 740.74

1.50 A 30.58 1.53 2.34 0.0020 493.83

2.00 A 26.34 1.32 1.73 0.0027 370.37

2.50 A 23.75 1.19 1.41 0.0034 296.30

3.00 A 21.46 1.07 1.15 0.0041 246.91

3.50 A 20.13 1.01 1.01 0.0047 211.64

4.00 A 18.85 0.94 0.89 0.0054 184.19

TABLE II: This table shows the experimental data from part two: Harmonic oscillation of a spherical pendulum. The upper half of the table shows the data from using a small angle, 5o 10o , when counting the time of twenty periods while the lower half represents data from using a large theta 45o . T is the period of one oscillation, T 2 is that time squared, B is the magnetic eld and 1/B is the inverse of the magnetic eld.

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5.1 Hz T rial1(s) T rial2(s) T rial3(s) AveP eriod(s) BF ield(T ) (rad/s) 1.00 A 1.50 A 2.00 A 2.50 A 3.00 A 3.50 A 4.00 A 14.88 10.28 7.63 5.59 5.21 4.00 4.00 13.41 9.35 7.00 5.62 4.93 4.44 4.13 14.54 9.03 7.09 5.78 4.78 4.44 3.84 14.28 9.55 7.24 5.66 4.97 4.29 3.99 0.0014 0.0020 0.0027 0.0034 0.0041 0.0047 0.0054 0.44 0.66 0.87 1.11 1.26 1.46 1.57

6.1 Hz T rial1(s) T rial2(s) T rial3(s) AveP eriod(s) BF ield(T ) (rad/s)

1.00 A 15.94 15.47 15.88 15.76 0.0014 0.40

1.50 A 2.00 A 2.50 A 3.00 A 3.50 A 4.00 A 11.19 8.44 6.90 5.69 5.15 4.59 10.69 8.12 6.82 5.53 5.06 4.50 10.91 8.15 6.69 5.88 5.22 4.28 10.93 8.24 6.80 5.70 5.14 4.46 0.0020 0.0027 0.0034 0.0041 0.0047 0.0054 0.57 0.76 0.92 1.10 1.22 1.41

TABLE III: This table shows the experimental data for part three: Precessional motion of a spinning sphere. The upper half represents data while using a strobe ashing at 5.1 Hertz and the lower half represents data using a strobe at 6.1 Hertz. Three trials were ran at each Amperage for each frequency which is shown as Trials 1-3 on the table with each amperage being averaged below. B is the magnetic eld as before and is the precessional velocity.

FIG. 3: This graph shows the data from part one shown on a plot of Torque vs Magnetic Field. This plotting was chosen so the slope of the best t line is equal to the magnetic dipole moment.

FIG. 4: This graph shows the small theta data for part two in which the assumption sin() = holds true making calculations I reliable yet much easier. It is a plot of T 2 vs the inverse of the magnetic eld as to yield the slope being equal to 4 where I is equal to the moment of inertia of the cue ball.

FIG. 5: This graph shows the large theta data for part two in which the assumption sin() = does NOT hold true making calculations unreliable yet still much easier. It is a plot of T 2 vs the inverse of the magnetic eld as to yield the slope being I equal to 4 where I is equal to the moment of inertia of the cue ball. This was to investigate what happens to the magnetic dipole moment value calculated if using a large rather than a small .

FIG. 6: Figure 6 shows the data of the Precessional Angular Velocity vs the Magnetic Field in which the slope is equal to L . This result is using the strobe light at 5.1 Hz.

FIG. 7: Figure 7 shows the data of the Precessional Angular Velocity vs the Magnetic Field in which the slope is equal to L . This result is using the strobe light at 6.1 Hz.