Eddy Currents in Stainless Steel

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Techart Power-User Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Brigham City, Utah Posts: 163 Good Answers: 5	Eddy Currents in Stainless Steel 04/24/2006 11:45 AM
	When energizing an electromagnet with AC current, placing a ring around an iron shaft placed on top of the electromagnet, the ring of copper, aluminum, etc., will fly up. Why does a ring of stainless steel not respond similarly? Also when dropping a magnet through a copper or aluminum pipe, the magnet drops slowly due to the eddy currents and resultant magnetic fields. But drops rapidly through the stainless steel pipe. Why? What is the difference in stainless? __________________ Kindness knows no boundaries.
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Helfrich von Lune Participant Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 2	#1 Eddy Currents in Stainless Steel 04/25/2006 2:59 AM
	Hi Chris, It is just the relatively high specific electrical resistance of stainless steel (up to a factor of 30 compared to aluminum). By the way, also the thermal conductivity is surprisingly low in stainless steel.
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Anonymous Poster	#2 Stainless Steel 04/25/2006 8:10 AM
	It is the addition of nickel to the alloy which changes its magnetic properties. This is an over simplification but generally the more nickel added, the less magnetic the steel is.
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rcuplin Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 6	#3 In reply to #2 Re:Stainless Steel 04/25/2006 8:33 AM
	It has nothing to do with magnetic properties and is purely a function of conductivity. Copper and aluminum have no magnetic properties and are more conductive than stainless steel. The induced current and thus the resulting opposing magnetic field is higher in more conductive materials.
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Anonymous Poster (1); Helfrich von Lune (1); rcuplin (1)

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