A General Coercivity Model for Soft Magnetic Materials

The effect of crystalline imperfections (as for instance, grain size, inclusions and dislocations) on the coercivity of soft magnetic materials is additive. This only can be explained by an Energy Balance Model. By another hand, the angular dependence of the coercivity only can be explained with a Force Balance Model. Thus both models, Energy Balance and Force Balance have to be invoked for the construction of a general model. The effect of dislocations on the coercivity can be treated as short range magnetostrictive effect. The effect of inclusions needs the consideration of the global magnetostatic energy of the system. The dependence of the coercivity with the grain size can also be explained analyzing the magnetostatic energy. The idea of pinning of domain walls by crystalline defects is reformulated, and it is shown that the coercivity increase due to crystalline defects is principally caused by variations of the magnetostatic energy in the system.