Investigating the electromagnet using various amount of current.

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Investigating the electromagnet using various amount of current.

Prediction: I predict that when I increase the current on the solenoid, this will increase the strength of the magnetism on the solenoid

Apparatus: An electromagnet, power pack, croc clips insulted wire variable resistor, ammeter, an iron bar and a Newton metre.

Scientific Knowledge: When insulated wire is wrapped round an iron core and the ends of the wire are connected to a battery the nail becomes capable of picking up paper clips and attracting a Newton meter. This is called an electromagnet. The iron core is magnetised by the current in the wire. If the battery is disconnected then the paper clips will fall off and the Newton meter will lose its attraction. This is because most of the magnetism has been lost.

 The passage of an electric current along a wire creates a magnetic field around the wire. The fields are in the shape of a series of concentric rings. The more coils used in the electromagnet, the stronger the magnet is. If there is one coil, and another is added, then the two coils have twice the strength of one. This is because the current going through the wire makes the soft-iron core is the factor that induces electromagnetism, as so when there is more current, there will be more wire or a more magnetised core.

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 Atoms line up into parts of the magnetic with similar directions called domains. This is because the earth has a magnetic field and the atoms in the metal all follow these magnetic lines and form these domains (force). This is similar to what happens when an electromagnet is formed.


Preliminary experiments; I did some preliminary experiments so that I could find out the range of the current, and how much voltage was needed in the experiment, and also exactly how far the electromagnet should be away from the iron bar. I tested ...

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