The effects of pulling stress may be observed either when the wire is stretched by a constant load while the magnetizing force is varied, or when the magnetizing force is kept constant while the load is varied. In the latter case the first application of stress is always attended by an increase—often a very great one—of the magnetization, whether the field is weak or strong, but after a load has been put on and taken off several times the changes of magnetization become cyclic. From experiments of both classes it appears that for a given field there is a certain value of the load for which the magnetization is a maximum, the maximum occurring at a smaller load the stronger the field. In very strong fields the maximum may even disappear altogether, the effect of the smallest stress being to diminish the magnetization; on the other hand, with very weak fields the maximum may not have been reached with the greatest load that the wire can support without permanent deformation. When the load on a hardened wire is gradually increased, the maximum value of I is found to correspond with a greater stress than when the load is gradually diminished, this being an effect of hysteresis. Analogous changes are observed in the residual magnetization which remains after the wire has been subjected to fields of different strength. The effects of longitudinal pressure are opposite to those of traction; when the cyclic condition has been reached, pressure reduces the magnetization of iron in weak fields and increases it in strong fields (Ewing, Magnetic Induction, 1900, 223).
The influence of traction in diminishing the susceptibility of nickel was first noticed by Kelvin (W. Thomson), and was subsequently investigated by Ewing and Cowan. The latter found the effect to be enormous, not only upon the induced magnetization, but in a still greater degree upon the residual. Even under so “moderate” a load as 33 kilogrammes per square mm., the induced magnetization of a hard-drawn nickel wire in a field of 60 fell from 386 to 72 units, while the residual was reduced from about 280 to 10. Ewing has also examined the effects produced by longitudinal compression upon the susceptibility and retentiveness of nickel, and found, as was to be expected, that both were greatly increased by pressure. The maximum susceptibility of one of his bars rose from 5.6 to 29 under a stress of 19.8 kilos per square mm. There were reasons for believing that no Villari reversal would be found in nickel. Ewing and Cowan looked carefully for it, especially in weak fields, but failed to discover anything of the kind.[40] Some experiments by A. Heydweiller,[41] which appeared to indicate a reversal in weak fields (corresponding to I = 5, or thereabouts), have been shown by Honda and Shimizu to be vitiated by the fact that his specimen was not initially in a magnetically neutral state; they found that when the applied field had the same direction as that of the permanent magnetization, Heydweiller’s fallacious results were easily obtained; but if the field were applied in the direction opposite to that of the permanent magnetization, or if, as should rightly be the case, there were no permanent magnetization at all, then there was no indication of any Villari reversal. Thus a very important question, which has given rise to some controversy, appears to be now definitely settled.
The effects of longitudinal pressure upon the magnetization of cast cobalt have been examined by C. Chree,[42] and also by J. A. Ewing.[43] Chree’s experiments were undertaken at the suggestion of J. J. Thomson, who, from the results of Bidwell’s observations on the magnetic deformation of cobalt, was led to expect that that metal would exhibit a reversal opposite in character to the effect observed in iron. The anticipated reversal was duly found by Chree, the critical point corresponding, under the moderate stress employed, to a field of about 120 units. Ewing’s independent experiments showed that the magnetization curve for a cobalt rod under a load of 16.2 kilogrammes per square mm. crossed the curve for the same rod when not loaded at H = 53. Both observers noticed analogous effects in the residual magnetization. The effect of tension was subsequently studied by Nagaoka and Honda, who in 1902 confirmed, mutatis mutandis, the results obtained by Chree and Ewing for cast cobalt, while for annealed cobalt it turned out that tension always caused diminution of magnetization, the diminution increasing with increasing fields. They also investigated the magnetic behaviour of various nickel-steels under tension, and found that there was always increase of magnetization. Thus it has been proved that in annealed cobalt and in nickel-steel there is no Villari reversal.
It has been pointed out by J. J. Thomson (Applications of Dynamics to Physics and Chemistry, 47) that on dynamical principles there must be a reciprocal relation between the changes of dimensions produced by magnetization and the changes of magnetization attending mechanical strain. Since, for example, stretching diminishes the magnetization of nickel, it follows from theory that the length of a nickel rod should be diminished by magnetization and conversely. So, too, the Villari reversals in iron and cobalt might have been predicted—as indeed that in cobalt actually was—from a knowledge of the changes of length which those metals exhibit when magnetized.
The complete reciprocity of the effects of magnetization upon length and of stretching upon magnetization is shown by the following parallel statements:—
| Iron. | |
Magnetization produces increaseof length in weak fields,decrease in strong fields. | Tension produces increase ofmagnetization in weak fields,decrease in strong fields. |
| Cast Cobalt. | |
Magnetization produces decreaseof length in weak fields,increase in strong fields. | Tension produces decrease ofmagnetization in weak fields,increase in strong fields. |
| Nickel and Annealed Cobalt. | |
Magnetization produces decreaseof length in all fields. | Tension produces decrease ofmagnetization in all fields. |
| Nickel-Steel. | |
Magnetization produces increaseof length in all fields. | Tension produces increase ofmagnetization in all fields. |
Nagaoka and Honda (Phil. Mag., 1898, 46, 261) have investigated the effects of hydrostatic pressure upon magnetization, using the same pieces of iron and nickel as were employed in their experiments upon magnetic change of volume. In the iron cylinder and ovoid, which expanded when magnetized, compression caused a diminution of magnetization; in the nickel rod, which contracted when magnetized, pressure was attended by an increase of magnetization. The amount of the change was in both cases exceedingly small, that in iron being less than 0.1 C.G.S. unit with a pressure of 250 atmospheres and H = 54. It would hardly be safe to generalize from these observations; the effects may possibly be dependent upon the physical condition of the metals. In the same paper Nagaoka and Honda describe an important experiment on the effect of transverse stress. An iron tube, having its ends closed by brass caps, was placed inside a compressing vessel into which water was forced until the pressure upon the outer surface of the tube reached 250 atmospheres. The experiment was the reverse of one made by Kelvin with a gun-barrel subjected to internal hydrostatic pressure (Phil. Trans., 1878, 152, 64), and the results were also the reverse. Under increasing magnetizing force the magnetization first increased, reached a maximum, and then diminished until its value ultimately became less than when the iron was in the unstrained condition. Experiments on the effect of external hydrostatic pressure upon the magnetization of iron rings have also been made by F. Frisbie,[44] who found that for the magnetizing forces used by Nagaoka and Honda pressure produced a small increase of magnetization, a result which appears to be in accord with theory.
The relations of torsion to magnetization were first carefully studied by G. Wiedemann, whose researches are described in his Elektricität, iii. 671. The most interesting of his discoveries, now generally known as the “Wiedemann effect,” is the following: If we magnetize longitudinally a straight wire which is fixed at one end and free at the other, and then pass an electric current through the wire (or first pass the current and then magnetize), the free end of the wire will twist in a certain direction depending upon circumstances: if the wire is of iron, and is magnetized (with a moderate force) so that its free end has north polarity, while the current through it passes from the fixed to the free end, then the free end as seen from the fixed end will twist in the direction of the hands of a watch; if either the magnetization or the current is reversed, the direction of the twist will be reversed. To this mechanical phenomenon there is a magnetic reciprocal. If we twist the free end of a ferromagnetic wire while a current is passing through it, the wire becomes longitudinally magnetized, the direction of the magnetization depending upon circumstances: if the wire is of iron and is twisted so that its free end as seen from the fixed end turns in the direction of the hands of a watch, while the current passes from the fixed to the free end, then the direction of the resulting magnetization will be such as to make the free end a north pole. The twist effect exhibited by iron under moderate longitudinal magnetization has been called by Knott a positive Wiedemann effect; if the twist were reversed, the other conditions remaining the same, the sign of the Wiedemann effect would be negative. An explanation of the twist has been given by Maxwell (Electricity and Magnetism, § 448). The wire is subject to two superposed magnetizations, the one longitudinal, the other circular, due to the current traversing the wire; the resultant magnetization is consequently in the direction of a screw or spiral round the wire, which will be right-handed or left-handed according as the relation between the two magnetizations is right-handed or left-handed; the magnetic expansion or contraction of the metal along the spiral lines of magnetization produces the Wiedemann twist. Iron (moderately magnetized) expands along the lines of magnetization, and therefore for a right-handed spiral exhibits a right-handed twist. This explanation was not accepted by Wiedemann,[45] who thought that the effect was accounted for by molecular friction. Now nickel contracts instead of lengthening when it is magnetized, and an experiment by Knott showed, as he expected, that caeteris paribus a nickel wire twists in a sense opposite to that in which iron twists. The Wiedemann effect being positive for iron is negative for nickel. Further, although iron lengthens in fields of moderate strength, it contracts in strong ones; and if the wire is stretched, contraction occurs with smaller magnetizing forces than if it is unstretched. Bidwell[46] accordingly found upon trial that the Wiedemann twist of an iron wire vanished when the magnetizing force reached a certain high value, and was reversed when that value was exceeded; he also found that the vanishing point was reached with lower values of the magnetizing force when the wire was stretched by a weight. These observations have been verified and extended by Knott, whose researches have brought to light a large number of additional facts, all of which are in perfect harmony with Maxwell’s explanation of the twist.
| Fig. 26. |
Maxwell has also given an explanation of the converse effect, namely, the production of longitudinal magnetization by twisting a wire when circularly magnetized by a current passing through it. When the wire is free from twist, the magnetization at any point P is in the tangential direction PB (see fig. 26). Suppose the wire to be fixed at the top and twisted at the bottom in the direction of the arrow-head T; then the element of the wire at P will be stretched in the direction Pe and compressed in the direction Pr. But tension and compression produce opposite changes in the magnetic susceptibility; if the metal is iron and its magnetization is below the Villari critical point, its susceptibility will be greater along Pe than along Pr; the direction of the magnetization therefore tends to approach Pe and to recede from Pr, changing, in consequence of the twist, from PB to some such direction as PB′, which has a vertical component downwards; hence the lower and upper ends will respectively acquire north and south polarity, which will disappear when the wire is untwisted. This effect has never been actually reversed in iron, probably, as suggested by Ewing, because the strongest practicable circular fields fail to raise the components of the magnetization along Pe and Pr up to the Villari critical value. Nagaoka and Honda have approached very closely to a reversal, and consider that it would occur if a sufficiently strong current could be applied without undue heating.