Inductance and Inductors

Inductors
• Common form of an inductor is a coil of
wire
– Used in radio tuning circuits
• In fluorescent lights
– Part of ballast circuit

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 Inductors
• On power systems
– Part of the protection circuitry used to control
short-circuit currents during faults

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 Electromagnetic Induction
• Voltage is induced
– When a magnet moves through a coil of
wire
– When a conductor moves through a
magnetic field

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 Electromagnetic Induction
• Change in current in one coil can induce
a voltage in a second coil
• Change in current in a coil can induce a
voltage in that coil

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 Electromagnetic Induction
• Faraday’s Law
– Voltage is induced in a circuit whenever the
flux linking the circuit is changing
– Magnitude of voltage is proportional to rate
of change of the flux linkages with respect to
time

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 Electromagnetic Induction
• Lenz’s Law
– Polarity of the induced voltage opposes the
cause producing it

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 Induced Voltage and Induction
• If a constant current is applied
– No voltage is induced
• If current is increased
– Inductor will develop a voltage with a polarity
to oppose increase

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 Induced Voltage and Induction
• If current is decreased
– Voltage is formed with a polarity that opposes
decrease

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 Iron-Core Inductors
• Have flux almost entirely confined to their
cores
• Flux lines pass through the windings
• Flux linkage as product
– Flux times number of turns

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 Iron-Core Inductors
• By Faraday’s law
– Induced voltage is equal to rate of change of
N

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 Air-Core Inductors
• All flux lines do not pass through all of the
windings
• Flux is directly proportional to current
• Induced voltage directly proportional to
rate of change of current

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 Self-Inductance
• Voltage induced in a coil is proportional
to rate of change of the current
• Proportionality constant is L
– Self-inductance of the coil-units are
Henrys (H)

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 Self-Inductance
• Inductance of a coil is one Henry
– If the voltage created by its changing
current is one volt
– When its current changes at rate of one
amp per second

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 Inductance Formulas
• Inductance of a coil is given by

•  is the length of coil in meters

• A is cross-sectional area in square meters
• N is number of turns
• µ is permeability of core
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 Inductance Formulas
• If air gap is used, formula for inductance is

• Where µo is permeability of air

• Ag is area of air gap
• g is length of gap
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 Computing Induced Voltage
• When using equation

– If current is increasing, voltage is positive

– If current is decreasing, voltage is negative
 i/t is slope for currents described with
straight lines
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 Inductances in Series
• For inductors in series
– Total inductance is sum of individual inductors
(similar to resistors in series)

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 Inductances in Parallel
• Inductors in parallel add as resistors do in
parallel

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 Core Types
• Type of core depends on intended use
and frequency range
• For audio or power supply applications
– Inductors with iron cores are generally
used

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 Core Types
• Iron-core inductors
– Large inductance values but have large
power losses at high frequencies
• For high-frequency applications
– Ferrite-core inductors are used

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 Variable Inductors
• Used in tuning circuits
• Inductance may be varied by changing the
coil spacing
• Inductance may be changed by moving a
core in or out

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Circuit Symbols

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 Stray Capacitance
• Turns of inductors are separated by
insulation
– May cause stray or parasitic capacitance
• At low frequencies, it can be ignored
– At high frequencies, it must be taken into account
• Some coils are wound in multiple
sections to reduce stray capacitance

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 Stray Inductance
• Current-carrying components have some
stray inductance
– Due to magnetic effects of current
• Leads of resistors, capacitors, etc. have
inductance
– These leads are often cut short to reduce
stray inductance
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 Inductance and Steady State DC
• Voltage across an inductance with
constant dc current is zero
• Since it has current but no voltage, it looks
like a short circuit at steady state
• For non-ideal inductors
– Resistance of windings must be considered

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Energy Stored by an Inductance
• When energy flows into an inductor
– Energy is stored in its magnetic field
• When the field collapses
– Energy returns to the circuit

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Energy Stored by an Inductance
• No power is dissipated, so there is no
power loss
• Energy stored is given by

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 Troubleshooting Hints
• Use ohmmeter
• Open coil will have infinite resistance
• Coil can develop shorts between its
windings causing excessive current
– Checking with an ohmmeter may indicate
lower resistance

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