Classroom activities to study Magnetic field patterns due to current configurations

Magnets are widely used in electric devices such as motors, generators, speakers, microphones, scanning devices etc. Magnetic field produced by a current configuration like solenoid, circular coil and straight conductor find applications in engineering. In this article, techniques of visualizing the magnetic field patterns due to the above current configurations is demonstrated. These experiments are beneficial to identify suitable current configurations to produce a specific field pattern for applications in scanning and other applications. These experiments can be easily conducted in classroom. Students acquire practical knowledge on relationship between current and magnetic fields. This enables them to inculcate application skills to design current distributions to obtain a specific magnetic field pattern.