The Microstructural Model of the Ferromagnetic Material Behavior in an External Magnetic Field

Abstract

In this paper, the behavior of a ferromagnetic material is considered in the framework of microstructural modeling. The equations describing the behavior of such material in the magnetic field, are constructed based on minimization of total magnetic energy with account of limitations imposed on the spontaneous magnetization vector and scalar magnetic potential. This conditional extremum problem is reduced to the unconditional extremum problem using the Lagrange multiplier. A variational (weak) formulation is written down and linearization of the obtained equations is carried out. Based on the derived relations a solution of a two-dimensional problem of magnetization of a unit cell (a grain of a polycrystal or a single crystal of a ferromagnetic material) is developed using the finite element method. The appearance of domain walls is demonstrated, their thickness is determined, and the history of their movement and collision is described. The graphs of distributions of the magnetization vector in domains and in domain walls in the external magnetic field directed at different angles to the anisotropy axis are constructed and the magnetization curves for a macrospecimen are plotted. The results obtained in the present paper (the thickness of the domain wall, the formation of a 360-degree wall) are in agreement with the ones available in the current literature.

Keywords

• ferromagnetic material
• micromagnetism
• variational formulation
• finite element method