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Simple System to Measure the Earth's Magnetic Field

Article  in  The Physics Teacher · September 2010

DOI: 10.1119/1.3502512 · Source: arXiv

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Resat Akoglu Mustafa Halilsoy

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 Simple System to Measure the Earth's Magnetic Field
R. Akoglu, M. Halilsoy, and S. Habib Mazharimousavi

Citation: The Physics Teacher 48, 549 (2010); doi: 10.1119/1.3502512

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.3502512
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/tpt/48/8?ver=pdfcov
Published by the American Association of Physics Teachers

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 Simple System to Measure the Earth’s
Magnetic Field
R. Akoglu, M. Halilsoy, and S. Habib Mazharimousavi, Eastern Mediterranean University, G. Magosa, North Cyprus, Turkey

O
ur aim in this proposal is to use Faraday’s law of
induction as a simple lecture demonstration to
measure the Earth’s magnetic field (B). This
will also enable the students to learn about how electric power
is generated from rotational motion. Obviously the idea is not
original, yet it may be attractive in the sense that no sophisti-
cated devices are used. All the equipment needed is available
in an elementary physics laboratory and is displayed in Fig. 1.
The square wooden coil and handmade belt system to rotate
the coil may require some craftsmanship; once made, it can be
used for years. Using a compass, we first orient the table paral-
lel to the direction of the Earth’s horizontal component of B
field. This is necessary to maximize the Earth’s…field which can
suppress the noise effects as much as possible. It is preferable
to minimize also any environmental effects by conducting the Fig. I. Experiment set-up when the axis of rotation is horizontal.
experiment away from power lines, if possible of course.
The induced emf according to the law of induction is given
by1, 2

(1)

where N = number of turns in the coil and f is the magnetic

flux, which is changing in time due to rotation.

Apparatus and experiment

1) A square-shaped wooden block of area 0.25 m2 to serve as
coil having N = 100 turns of copper wire (1.1 mm in diam-
eter).
2) A hand-driven mechanical system connected through
a belt to the wooden coil. The handle is mounted on an
empty wooden box fixed appropriately on the table. (Re- Fig. 2. Experiment set-up when the axis of rotation is vertical.
mark: A car’s wiper motor can serve even better to rotate
the coil. Since we conducted the experiment in both ways,
we reached the conclusion that a wiper motor gives more
efficient results).
3) A 200-mV voltmeter (or digital avometer) and a rheostat (2)
with their cables.
Here 0 is due to the background effect while A stands for the
4) A compass to align the experiment table parallel to the
Earth’s horizontal component of B field. As the coil rotates, area of the coil. We plot  versus 1/T, which is a straight line
in this particular case its axis remains perpendicular to B. with intercept 0, shown in Fig. 3. The total magnetic…field B
of the Earth is obtained as B = 0.41 G within the error limits.
The experiment table is shown in Fig 1. This shows also the We proceed next to determine the dip angle for the Earth’s
brush system, which collects the generated alternating current magnetic field. For this purpose we mount our system such
o
(voltage) from the rotating coil. As remarked before, we set that it is rotated by 90 to make the axis of rotation vertical
the coil in rotation, either manually or by getting power from (Fig. 2). We record the data for the horizontal component Bh
a wiper motor. For each 10 rotations we read the emf from the and tabulate it in Table II. We plot the induced emf
voltmeter and prepare the data in Table I. Then, the amplitude corresponding to Bh in Fig. 4. This determines Bh as Bh =
of emf versus the inverse of the period T of rotation of the coil 0.21 G. The dip angle follows from
is given by

DOI: 10.1119/1.3502512 The Physics Teacher ◆ Vol. 48, November 2010 549
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 Table I.

time for 10 turns (s) emf (mV)

first 03.90 16.2
second 04.95 14.2
third 06.00 12.5
fourth 06.60 11.3
fifth 07.50 09.5
sixth 08.20 08.5
seventh 12.00 05.0

Table II.
time for 10 turns (s) emf (m V)
first 04.00 08.5
Fig. 3. A plot of the amplitude of the induced emf versus the peri- second 05.20 07.7
od of rotation of the coil, when the axis of rotation is horizontal. third 05.90 06.5
fourth 06.50 06.0
fifth 07.00 05.5
sixth 08.50 04.7
seventh 12.50 03.2

Acknowledgment
We wish to thank the anonymous reviewer, whose sug-
gestions helped us to improve the experiment.

References
1. Douglas C. Giancoli, Physics for Scientists and Engineers with
Modern Physics, 3rd ed. (Prentice Hall, 2000).
2. David Halliday, Robert Resnick, and Jearl Walker, Fundamen-
tals of Physics, 7th ed. (Wiley, 2005).

Fig. 4. A plot of the amplitude of the induced emf versus the Resat Akoglu works as a senior physics technician at EMU.
period of rotation of the coil, when the axis of rotation is vertical. resat.akoglu@emu.edu.tr
h
(3) Mustafa Halilsoy is professor and chairman of the Physics Department
at EMU.
o mustafa.halilsoy@emu.edu.tr
which turns out to be q @ 59 for Cyprus. The reason
o
that we obtained more than expected (< 50 for the S. Habib Mazharimousavi is an assistant professor at EMU.
Mediterranean region) is due to the power lines in the sur- habib.mazhari@emu.edu.tr
rounding area.

550 The Physics Teacher ◆ Vol. 48, November 2010

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