RETENTIVITY

Certain ferromagnetic materials stay magnetized better than others. When a substance such as iron is subjected to a magnetic field as intense as it can handle, say, by enclosing it in a wire coil carrying a high current, there will be some residual magnetism left when the current stops flowing in the coil. Retentivity, also sometimes called remanence, is a measure of how well a substance can “memorize” a magnetic field imposed on it and thereby become a permanent magnet.
Retentivity is expressed as a percentage. If the maximum possible flux density in a material is x teslas or gauss and then goes down to y teslas or gauss when the current is removed, the retentivity B_r of that material is given by the following formula:
B_r = 100y/x
What is meant by maximum possible flux density in the foregoing definition?
This is an astute question. In the real world, if you make an electromagnet with a core material, there is a limit to the flux density that can be generated in that core. As the current in the coil increases, the flux density inside the core goes up in proportion—for awhile. Beyond a certain point, however, the flux density levels off, and further increases in current do not produce any further increase in the flux density. This condition is called core saturation. When we determine retentivity for a material, we are referring to the ratio of the flux density when it is saturated and the flux density when there is no magnetomotive force acting on it.
As an example, suppose that a metal rod can be magnetized to 135 G when it is enclosed by a coil carrying an electric current. Imagine that this is the maximum possible flux density that the rod can be forced to have. For any substance, there is always such a maximum; further increasing the current in the wire will not make the rod any more magnetic. Now suppose that the current is shut off and that 19 G remain in the rod. Then the retentivity B_r is
B_r = 100 × 19/135 = 100 × 0.14 = 14 percent
Certain ferromagnetic substances have good retentivity and are excellent for making permanent magnets. Other ferromagnetic materials have poor retentivity. They can work well as the cores of electromagnets, but they do not make good permanent magnets. Sometimes it is desirable to have a substance with good ferromagnetic properties but poor retentivity. This is the case when you want to have an electromagnet that will operate from dc so that it maintains a constant polarity but that will lose its magnetism when the current is shut off.
If a ferromagnetic substance has poor retentivity, it’s easy to make it work as the core for an ac electromagnet because the polarity is easy to switch. However, if the retentivity is high, the material is “magnetically sluggish” and has trouble following the current reversals in the coil. This sort of stuff doesn’t function well as the core of an ac electromagnet.