Modern Recreation of Felix Savary’s Experiments Using Modern Technology

Our Findings

From the data we have gathered, there seems to be three main points related to the magnetization of steel needles:

1. Regardless of the initial magnetization, we will always get the same ending point when applying the damped oscillatory discharge.

2. The frequency of an undamped oscillatory discharge affects the coercivity of the needle. The effect of this on a damped oscillatory discharge is yet to be determined.

3. There is a minimum threshold value that must be reached before the magnetization of the needle can flip.

1. Regardless of the initial magnetization, we will always get the same ending point when applying the damped oscillatory discharge.

Below is a graph of the magnetic field strength versus time and also a graph of the hysteresis curve of the steel needle. There are 3 runs, each starting at different initial magnetizations. As you can see from the pictures below, the initial magnetizations does not affect the hysteresis curve of the steel needle. It will follow the same path every time regardless.

Below is a graph of the magnetic field strength versus the time. There are 5 runs of the same needle and solenoid (550 turns), but started at different initial magnetizations. As you can see below, the initial magnetization has no effect on the final magnetization since all 5 runs end up at the same value.

I predicted that this is because the damped oscillatory discharge follows the same path on the hysteresis curve, which was a conclusion drawn from looking at the undamped oscillatory discharge. Here is a graph accompanying the graph above.