Dynamic magnetization models for soft ferromagnetic materials with coarse and fine domain structures

• Critical analysis of a ferromagnetic-material loss-separation principle.
• This is to warn materials-science engineers about the inaccuracies resulting from this principle.
• A transient model having a single dynamic component is proposed.

We consider dynamic models, both numerical and analytical, that reproduce the magnetization field H(B) and the energy loss in ferromagnetic sheet materials with different domain structures. Conventional non-oriented (NO) and grain-oriented (GO) electrical steels are chosen as typical representatives of fine-domain and coarse-domain materials. The commonly-accepted loss separation procedures in these materials are critically analyzed. The use of a well-known simplified (“classical”) expression for the eddy-current loss is identified as the primary source of mistaken evaluations of excess loss in NO steel, in which the loss components can only be evaluated using the Maxwell (penetration) equation. The situation is quite different in GO steel, in which the loss separation is uncertain, but the total dynamic loss is several times higher than that explained by any version (numerical or analytical) of the classical approach. To illustrate the uncertainty of the loss separation in GO steel, we show that the magnetization field, and thus the total loss, in this material can be represented with equal accuracy using either the existing three-component approach or our proposed two-component technique, which makes no distinction between classical eddy-current and excess fields and losses.