Using A GMR Effect Sensor To Measure The Current In A Wire By Means Of Its Magnetic Field

Prepared by: Maneesha Wijesinghe Department of electrical engineering Widener University

Date performed: January 2012 - March2012

Abstract Objective:

Introduction: Giant magneto resistive sensors (GMR sensors) are a line of magnetic field sensors that are based on the giant Magneto Resistive effect (GMR effect). GMR effect is a large change in electrical resistance that occurs when thin, stacked layers of ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic materials are exposed to a magnetic field. An external magnetic field applied on such a stack of layers will overcome the antiferromagnetic coupling aligning the magnetic moments thus decreasing the resistance. A GMR sensor can decrease the resistance down to about 13% of the original value. The sensor used for this experiment is a type of GMR sensors called the magnetometer. The magnetometer is configured as Wheatstone bridge. Two resistors in the Wheatstone bridge are covered by flux concentrators, which prevent an applied magnetic field from affecting them. When an external magnetic field is applied the resistors, which are not covered, will decrease in resistance while the resistors covered do not. This imbalance leads to the bridge output. In this experiment we will measure the output voltage as a function of the magnetic field experienced by the GMR sensor. Then the eddy current of the solenoid creating the magnetic field is measured to verify the Amperes law. The following specifications and constrains are implemented on the experimental device. The DC power supply will use a standard 9.0Volt battery No voltages over 45V will be present in the instrument or the test circuitry. The measuring system will draw no more that 10.0mA from the battery. The design in fabricated in CMOS technology. Both AC and DC current in the range 0A to 2A will be measured. Using GMR sensors to detect Eddy currents is currently under research on evaluation techniques of aging aircrafts. These techniques are mainly based on detecting cracks that occur in multilayer wing structures. When an eddy current is induced in a test specimen if there are no anomalies (cracks) present in the specimen the normal component of the magnetic field vanishes. However, in the presence of a defect the normal component exists. This technique is called Magnetoopic imaging (MOI) and is currently conducted by using optical sensors. Even thought optical sensors are able to detect changes in the magnetic field they are unable to produce quantitative measurements. Replacing the optical sensor by a GMR sensor will allow the system to produce quantitative measurements on the changes in the magnetic field. Theory According to the Amperes law for any closed loop path, the line integral of the dot product of the length elements in the closed loop and the magnetic field is equal to the product of the permeability of free space and the electric current enclosed by the loop. (1) B.dl = m0 I

For a solenoid with a length L the above equation can be simplified as, B.dl = B.L

(2)

where L is considered the horizontal length of the integration path. The current enclosed by the length L is equal to, (3) I = NI 0 where N is the number of loops enclosed by the length L and I0 is the current(eddy current) travelling through each loop. Substituting (3) to (1) and equalizing (1) and (2) will give the equation that relates the magnetic field and the eddy current of the solenoid, B.L = m0 NI 0 (4) m NI B= 0 0 L Substituting n = N L in to (4) where n is the number of turns per unit length, (4) can be simplified into,

B = m0 nI 0

(5)

The magnetic field produce by the solenoid is derived using the following formula, (6) where k is the calibration constant of the AH002-02 sensor and Vout is the output voltage of the sensor. Equalizing (5) and (6) the following equation is derived, m0 NI 0 = kVout (7) mN Vout = 0 I 0 k According to (7) a graph of Vout plotted as a function of I0 should have a slope equal to m0 N . k Procedure: The following equipment was used for the experimental setup. NVE AH002-02 GMR sensor 9V DC power supply INA114 instrumentation amplifier Copper wire TL082 operational amplifier Potentiometer

B = kVout

The experimental setup was built according to the following diagram.

Figure 1. Circuit configuration Two 100k resistors are used to control the current from the power supply and 10uF decoupling capacitors are used to reduce the power supply noise. A TL082 operational amplifier is used as a virtual ground for the circuit. The current supplied to the solenoid goes through a 1.5k resistor, which controls the current and prevent the solenoid from over heating. Wrapping thin magnetic copper wire around a paper tube creates the solenoid. The paper tube has a radius of. And the solenoid has. Number of turns. The GMR sensor was pinned to a small platform breadboard and the wired connecting to the relevant pins were soldered into the platform. The platform with the sensor was inserted into the solenoid tube to ensure that the magnetic field is surrounding the sensor. An instrumentation amplifier is used to amplify the output voltage of the circuit. According to the amplifier specifications, a 500 resistor was connected to the amplifier to achieve a gain of 100. A photograph of the finished circuit is shown in figure 2.

figure 2 circuit configuration for the experiment the input current, or the current through the solenoid was increased by small increments by changing the resistance of the potentiometer. The value of the current was measured using the function generator. A multimeter was used to measure the output voltage of the instrumentation amplifier. Results and analysis. Two trials of data were taken. Table 1. Trial 1 of input current vs. output voltage
Data Point 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Current through Coil (mA) 0.9 2.6 4.1 6.6 7.8 9.0 9.7 Output Voltage (V) 0.119 0.132 0.151 0.186 0.168 0.216 0.182