Effective Combination of Soft Magnetic Materials for Magnetic Shielding

This study proposes an effective method in the arrangement of layers of high permeability materials for shielding power frequency magnetic field. The side of a neutral ground reactor was blocked with one or two layers of grain-oriented electrical steel (GO), nonoriented electrical steel (NGO), and permalloy (PC). In a weak magnetic field, PC showed the highest shielding performance, whereas GO was the best in a strong magnetic field. NGO had a lower shielding performance than GO, but was better than PC in a very strong magnetic field. When shielding with two layers directly adjacent to each other, the performance level of GO/PC combination (GO is closer to the field source) was between that of GO/GO and PC/PC combinations. When the two layers were slightly separated, on the other hand, GO/PC was most effective in a wide range of magnetic fields. These results are due to the shunt effect of high permeability materials and change of rank of permeability with magnetic field strength between different magnetic materials. Closely adjacent layers act as one body under the regime of shunt mechanism of magnetic shielding. Once the layers are separated, the GO sheet effectively reduces the strong magnetic field first, and then the PC sheet effectively shields the weakened field.