See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326708535 Magnetic permeability measurement method for particle materials Conference Paper · May 2018 DOI: 10.1109/I2MTC.2018.8409702 CITATIONS READS 4 4,547 3 authors, including: Ziqiang Cui Tianjin University 111 PUBLICATIONS 1,028 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Web based remote DAQ system for electrical tomography View project Signal Processing View project All content following this page was uploaded by Ziqiang Cui on 26 January 2019. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. This full text paper was peer­reviewed at the direction of IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society prior to the acceptance and publication. Magnetic Permeability Measurement Method for Particle Materials Ziqiang Cui, Weiyang Zhang and Huaxiang Wang Tianjin Key Laboratory of Process Measurement and Control, School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China Email: [email protected] Abstract—Permeability measurement is mainly used to determine the permeability of magnetic material, which is generally required to be shaped prior to test. In many chemical processes, the distribution and density of particle materials play a key role in determining the reaction efficiency. However, particles do not induce as much eddy current as the thin film/ discshaped planar material does. Therefore, it is not convenient to employ the aforementioned method to perform permeability measurement. In this paper, a method for measuring the equivalent permeability of particle mixtures is proposed. The measurement system consists of a four-tap solenoid coil sensor and a LCR meter. Whats more, the relationship between the measured inductance and the permeability of particles is defined. The proposed method is verified numerically by using Comsol Multiphysics software and by experiments. Experimental results show that the relative error of the developed system is below 5.35%. 1. Introduction The magnetic permeability is a basic physical parameter. There are a number of methods for determining the permeability, e.g. the inductance method, resonance method and probe method. These measurement methods dedicate to a specific type of samples, and usually require the preparation of the samples, i.e. casting into special shapes. For instance, reflection measurements can be used to measure the permeability spectra of magnetic thin film [1]–[5] and other small specimen with an accuracy of 10% [6]. The eddy current measurement can be used to measure the permeability for magnetic plates, with a typical error less than 7.5%, primarily due to the liftoff effect [7]. It also applies to the metallic tubes/pipes measurements [8]. The inductance method can measure the effective permeability for metamaterial unit of planar spiral structure or magnetic cylinder materials [9]. Recently, there are fast-growing demands for the permeability measurement instruments/methods in the nanomaterial, biomedical applications. Therefore, the emerging measuring techniques/instruments usually focus on specific applications. A differentially excited loop method was employed to measure the permeability of magnetic thin film, with an error less than 8% [10]. An induced voltage method ,((( was introduced to measure the permeability of ring-shaped samples, with the deviations of 5% [11]. A cavity method was designed to measure the permeability of F e3 O4 and silver nano-powder, in which the samples have to be casted into molds prior to measurement [12]. A Gauss-meter probe was used for Magneto-Rheological Elastomers (MREs), in which the cylindrical shape samples are required [13]. The permeability of nanoferrite powders can be obtained by the in-waveguide transmission reflection technique, which needs the disc-shaped planar samples [14]. In the case of multi-phase flow measurement, the effective magnetic permeability may represent the concentration of the ferrite material within its mixtures with the liquid and/or gas phases. However, the aforementioned measuring instruments cannot be directly employed in the circumference. The reasons include, 1) the multi-phase flows are usually fast-changing dynamic processes, thus require that the measuring circuit should be of fast response and large dynamic range, and 2) the test samples are in a circular vessel/pipe, and usually not applicable for sample preparation. In this paper, the design and implementation of a permeability measurement system is presented, which can measure both the permeability and conductivity of particle mixtures. The mixtures of Al2 O3 /N iO/F e and air are evaluated with the proposed method. Experimental results show that the proposed method can provide permeability measurements of high stability and precision. 2. Method 2.1. Sensor design As shown in Figure. 1, the toroidal core is commonly used in determining the permeability of the block materials. Here, Lw is the inductance of the air-core coil and Le is the inductance filled with the test samples. Re is composed of the resistance of wire, i.e. Rw , and the resistance that represents the core losses. The core losses will increase as the applied frequency. Effective permeability is derived from the inductance measurement result using the following equations: μe = lLe μ0 N 2 S (1) where La is the inductance between taps 2 and 3. The inductance of the solenoid coil is L a = μ0 n 2 l a S Figure 1: Toroidal inductor and the equivalent circuits. By measuring the impedance of the coil filled with air or ferrite particles, i.e. Ze and Zw , one can obtain the complex permeability of the particle material with the following formula: μr = μe = l(Re − Rw ) μ0 N 2 ωS (2) where l is the average magnetic path length of toroidal core, S is the cross-sectional area of toroidal core, N is the number of turns, ω is the angular frequency, and μ0 = 4π × 10−7 H/m. The toroidal core is usually used for estimating the permeability of the inductor/transoformer cores. It requires sample preparation prior to permeability measurement. However, this is not convenient for use as a container for the particles and its mixtures. Instead, a 4-tap solenoid sensor is designed and implemented for this task, as shown in Figure. 2. (5) Z e − Zw +1 jωμ0 n2 la S (6) 2.2. Equivalent circuit model In the permeability measurement, the applied frequency may ranges between 100 Hz and 10 M Hz , depending on specific applications. Figure.3 shows a simplified equivalent circuit model of the single layer solenoid coil [15]. The stray capacitances should be taken into account, especially when the applied frequency is higher than 100 kHz . The inductance La together with the wire resistance RS1 and stray capacitance CS1 , i.e. between taps 2 and 3, make up the impedance under test. By applying a constant current excitation, the rest components in the equivalent circuit actually have no effect on the induced potential ξ between taps 2 and 3. RS0 LS0 RS1 1 La 2 CS0 RS0 LS0 3 CS1 4 CS0 Figure 3: Simplified equivalent circuit model of the single layer solenoid coil. To obtain accurate value of La , the two parameters, e.g. RS1 and CS1 , should be determined at first. The impedance between taps 2 and 3 is Figure 2: Principle of the four-tap solenoid coil sensor. The total length of the solenoid coil is l, and the length between the two inner taps is la . The radius of the coil is R. The number of turns in unit length is n. By applying an ac current signal through taps 1 and 4, an ac electromagnetic field is set up. Assuming that coil length l is infinite and the coil is filled with air, the magnetic field intensity B is: μ0 nI, inside the coil, B0 = (3) 0, outside the coil. The induced potential ξ between taps 2 and 3 can be calculated by: ξ = −nla dΦ = jωLa I dt (4) Zx = Rx + jX = (RS1 + jωLa )// = 1 jωCS1 RS1 + jωLa 1 + jωRS1 CS1 − ω 2 La Cs1 (7) The wire resistance can be directly measured while the applied frequency is maintained at 0 Hz . In this case, the impedance Zx = RS1 . The stray capacitance CS1 and the self-inductance La will resonate, i.e. at the self resonance frequency (SRF). The inferred frequency response is shown in Figure. 4. Above the SRF, the capacitive reactance becomes the dominant part of the impedance. The SRF of the solenoid coil can be obtained with an impedance analyzer. And the stray capacitance CS1 can be solved by assuming the reactance X = 0 in Eq. (7). By taking into account of the edge effect, the magnetic flux density of a finite solenoid can be approximated by stacking together a number of circular loops coaxially. The magnetic flux density at a point on the z -axis of finite solenoid coil can be calculated by μ0 nI B(z) = 2 (l/2) − z + (z + l/2)2 + R2 (9) It can be found that the ratio of solenoid length to its diameter, i.e. l/D, plays a key role in determining the factor k . Figure. 6 shows the distributions of B(z) of two different solenoid coils. The ratios of l/D are 5.69 and 1.73, respectively. Figure 4: Frequency response of reactance X . (z − l/2)2 + R2 (l/2) + z 1 2.3. Correction factor Figure 5: Distribution of magnetic flux density inside a finite solenoid coil. la 2 − l2a Φ(z) dz Φ0 0.6 l/D=5.69 l/D=1.73 0.4 0.2 0 −6 −4 −2 0 l/R 2 4 6 Figure 6: Magnetic flux density along z -axis. Note that the magnetic flux density B(z) is normalized by B0 in Figure. 6. At the both ends of the solenoid coils, B(z)/B0 falls sharply to nearly zero, while it reaches the peak value at its center part. It can be expected that the solenoid coil with larger l/D ratio can provide a longer part of uniformly distributed magnetic field at its center, and get close to the case of an infinite coil. Therefore, the two inner taps, i.e. taps 2 and 3, are introduced for potential measurement, which can significantly reduce the impact caused by edge effect. In addition, the correction factor k can further reduce the error caused by edge effect. Therefore, Eq.(6) changes into: μr = k(Ze − Zw ) +1 jωμ0 n2 la S (10) 3. Results and Discussions The correction factor can be expressed as: k= 0.8 Bz/B0 The finite solenoid is different with the infinite one in the magnetic field distribution, i.e. Eq. (3). For a finite solenoid coil, its magnetic field is not uniformly distributed, primarily due to the edge effect. Therefore, a correction factor is introduced to account for the edge effect in the finite solenoid coil sensor. In addition, it is possible to employ an enough long solenoid coil to generate a satisfied magnetic field between the centre part of the solenoid coil, i.e. between taps 2 and 3. Figure.5 shows the distribution of magnetic flux density inside a finite solenoid coil. It can be found that the magnetic flux density distribution of the solenoid coil is axial symmetrical. The magnetic flux density decreases gradually at both ends of the coil, which is a phenomena of the edge effect. (8) where Φ(z) is the magnetic flux within the sensor along z -axis, and Φ0 = B0 S is the magnetic flux in an infinite solenoid coil. 3.1. Numerical validation The validation of the method is verified by numerical simulation. As shown in Figure. 7, a solenoid coil of 96mm in length is employed in the simulation. The inner and outer diameters of the coil are 16mm and 17mm, respectively. The diameter of the wire is 0.5mm. The magnitude and frequency of the applied signal are 1A and 10kHz , respectively.The total number of turns is 192. i.e. taps 2 and 3 as indicated in Figure. 2, and then the inductance Le can be obtained by Eq.(3). Figure.9 shows the comparison between the set values and the calculated results. 96mm Ø17mm Ø16mm Figure 7: Single-layer solenoid. The simulations are carried out with Comsol Multiphysics software. Considering individual regions in the solenoid coil sensor that filled with the material of constant electrical conductivity and magnetic permeability, Maxwell’s equations for the induction problem can be rewritten as follows: ∇2 A + jωμσA = μJ Figure 9: Given and calculated permeability results. (11) ρ ∇ ϕ=− (12) ε where σ is the conductivity, ρ is the charge density, A is the vector potential, and ∇ × A = B. The partial differential equations can be solved by applying the appropriate boundary conditions, which express the particular application and sensor geometry. Then, the magnetic flux density along the z -axis can be obtained from the simulation results. Figure. 8 shows the comparison between the simulated result and the result calculated from Eq.(9). 2 As shown in Figure.9, the calculated permeability increase linearly as the given permeability. However, the permeability of the core, μc , does not equal to the material permeability. This is caused by demagnetizing field effect and can be corrected by demagnetizing factor N ∗ , which depends on the geometry of the core [16]. Eq.(13) and Eq.(14) define the relationships between them. The effect of pipe wall is disregarded here. μc = N* 1+ μr * N (μ r − 1) Dc 2 2lc 2 (ln( D ) − 1) lc c (13) (14) Where lc and Dc are the length and diameter of the cylindrical core, respectively. 3.2. Experiments Figure 8: Simulated and calculated results of B(z). It can be found that the calculated result perfectly matches the simulation, validating Eq.(9). In order to validate the proposed method, the complex permeability has been calculated with the Eqs. (1) and (2). In addition, one can obtain the induction potential from the two inner taps, The proposed method is also verified by experiments. The experiments are carried out with a commercial LCR meter, i.e. ZM2371. The LCR meter can measure the inductance between 0.001nH and 99.9999GH at a basic accuracy of 0.08%. Its frequency range is between 1mHz and 100kHz . In the experiments, four-terminal configuration is employed for the LCR meter. The ports Hc and Lc are connecting to taps 1 and 4, respectively, through which a constant current of different frequencies is applied. The electric potential is measured between taps 2 and 3, i.e. by connecting them to the ports Hp and Lp. The measured parameters are Ls and Rs in series. Prior to the measurements, short and open circuit calibrations are performed. The measured data can be read from the LCR meter either from the instrument display or via USB port. Z(e/w) = Rs + jωLs (15) The correction factor k is 0.8758 for the sensor indicated in Figure.7, which is obtained by numerical simulation. The applied frequency is 1kHz . The measurements were performed on air, Al2 O3 and F e particles. The measured relative permeability of air, Al2 O3 and F e particles are 0.965, 0.98 and 2.15, respectively, according to Eq.(10). However, the relative permeability of air should be 1, indicating a system error of 3.5%. There is a calculation error of the factor k , because of approximatively treatment of Eq.(8), and/or the instrumental error. Although there is a difference of B distribution between solenoid filled with air or magnetic powders, which is caused by difference of their permeability, they can be approximatively compensated by normalizing each measurement with the measured permeability of air. In this way, the instrumental error can be eliminated at least, and system error can be relieved. A number of mixtures of Al2 O3 and F e are prepared for further test, i.e. each with different volume ratio. The equivalent permeability μe of the mixtures may be estimated using the Maxwell model, i.e. μ1 + 2 + 2φ(μ1 − 1) μe = μ1 + 2 − φ(μ1 − 1) (16) where μ1 = 2.21 is the relative permeability of F e particles,i.e. after compensation, and φ is the volume ratio of F e particles. Figure.10 presents the comparison between the measured permeability and calculated permeability of the mixtures. It can be found that the measured values are close to that estimated by using Maxwell model. The maximum relative difference is 5.35%, which appears at φ = 75%. In addition, the distribution of the ferrite particles play a key role in affecting the efficiency of the chemical reaction. Here, uniform spatial distribution of permeability for particles is mainly discussed. What impacts effective permeability for mixtures more is particle concentration instead of spatial distribution. In experiment, it can be treat as approximation uniform spatial distribution whose effect is weak enough. Complex relative permeability is usually simply permeability for short. In this paper, permeability will be short for that. 3.3. Repeatability A repeatability index Up is introduced to evaluate the measurement system, as defined in Eq.(17). 2.2 Relative permeability By applying a constant current excitation, one can obtain the equivalent inductance by resorting to Eq.(4). The applied magnetic flux density is less than 260mT , which is much lower than the saturation magnetic flux density of the test samples. According to Eq.(6), the calculation of the complex permeability requires the measurements of Ze and Zw . Here, Ze and Zw can be calculated by: 2 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 1kHz calculated 1 0.8 0 20 40 60 80 Volume ratio of Fe particles(%) 100 Figure 10: Variation curve of given permeability and calculated results. Up = ks = s 1 n−1 n (xi − i=1 1 n 2 n xi ) (17) i=1 where s is standard deviation calculated by Bessel formula, and k is corresponding to fiducial probability. For k = 2, P is 95.4%. The repeatability results are obtained for air and F e powders when measured at different frequencies, as listed in Table.(1). TABLE 1: Repeatability of the permeability measurements for (P = 95.4%). Frequency (kHz ) Air Fe powder 0.01 0.0374 0.02 0.1 0.0035 0.002 1 7.90E-04 8.31E-04 10 7.07E-04 0.0022 100 0.0018 0.0186 4. Conclusions and future works In this paper, a method for estimating the permeability of particle mixtures is proposed and the details of the sensor design are presented. By introducing the four-tap configuration, the solenoid coil sensor can provide nearly uniformly distributed magnetic field at its central section, which helps reducing the impact of edge effect. As compared with the conventional method, the proposed method is flexible and reliable, and does not require to preparation of a toroidal or other shape cores. These features are especially useful for test of particle mixtures, i.e. either solid-solid, liquid-solid or gas-solid. The sensor can be configured to work with commercial instruments, i.e. LCR meter or impedance analyzer, to perform the permeability measurements. In the experiments, the measured permeability of air is 0.965, showing a system error of 3.5%. And this can be compensated to achieve high accuracy. Mixtures of Al2 O3 and F e particles of different volume ratios are tested, showing a maximum relative error of 5.35% when compared with values estimated by using Maxwell model. Note that the applied magnetic flux density is much lower than the saturation magnetic flux density. Therefore, the measured permeability can be recognized as the initial permeability. Future works will focus on the test of the proposed sensor with Agilent 4294A impedance analyzer and development of a hand-held instrument. Acknowledgment The authors would like to thank the financial supports from Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61671319 and 61627803). References [1] J. Wei, H. Feng, Z. Zhu, Q. Liu, and J. 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