Inductance - Nonlinear Inductance

Nonlinear Inductance

Many inductors make use of magnetic materials. These materials over a large enough range exhibit a nonlinear permeability with such effects as saturation. This in-turn makes the resulting inductance a function of the applied current. Faraday's Law still holds but inductance is ambiguous and is different whether you are calculating circuit parameters or magnetic fluxes.

The secant or large-signal inductance is used in flux calculations. It is defined as:

The differential or small-signal inductance, on the other hand, is used in calculating voltage. It is defined as:

The circuit voltage for a nonlinear inductor is obtained via the differential inductance as shown by Faraday's Law and the chain rule of calculus.

There are similar definitions for nonlinear mutual inductances.

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