Bifilar coil

A bifilar coil is an electromagnetic coil that contains two closely spaced, parallel windings. In engineering, the word "bifilar" describes wire which is made of two filaments or strands. It is commonly used to denote special types of winding wire for transformers. Wire can be purchased in bifilar form, usually as different colored enamelled wire bonded together. For three strands, the term trifilar coil is used.

Description and applications

Some bifilars have adjacent coils in which the convolutions are arranged so that the potential difference is magnified (i.e., the current flows in same parallel direction). The magnetic field created by one winding is multiplied with that created by the other, resulting in a greater net magnetic field. Others are wound so that the current flows in opposite directions. The magnetic field created by one winding is therefore equal and opposite to that created by the other, resulting in a net magnetic field of zero (i.e., neutralizing any negative effects in the coil). In electrical terms, this means that the self-inductance of the coil is zero.

The bifilar coil (more often called the "bifilar winding") is used in modern electrical engineering as a means of constructing wire-wound resistors with negligible parasitic self-inductance.

A different type of bifilar coil is used in some relay windings and transformers used for a switched-mode power supply to suppress back-emf. In this case, the two wire coils are closely spaced and wound in parallel but are electrically isolated from each other. The primary coil is driven to operate the relay, and the secondary coil is short-circuited inside the case. When the current through the primary is interrupted, as happens when the relay is switched off, most of the magnetic energy is intercepted by the secondary coil which converts it to heat in its internal resistance. This is only one of several methods of absorbing the energy from the primary coil before it can damage the device (usually a vulnerable semiconductor) that drives the relay. The main disadvantage of this method is that it greatly increases the switching time of the relay.

When used in a switching transformer, one winding of the bifilar coil is used as a means of removing the energy stored in the stray magnetic flux which fails to link the "primary coil" to the "secondary coil" of the transformer. Because of their proximity, the wires of the bifilar coil both "see" the same stray magnetic flux. One wire is clamped to ground usually by a diode so that when the other "primary" wire of the bifilar coil no longer has a voltage applied across it by the switching transistor, the stray magnetic flux generates a current in the clamping coil with the primary side voltage appearing across it, causing an equal voltage to appear across the primary winding. If this clamping coil was not used, the stray magnetic flux would attempt to force a current to flow through the primary wire. Since the primary wire is switched off and the switching transistor is in a high resistance state, the high voltage which would appear on the semiconductor switching transistor would exceed its electrical breakdown or even damage it.

History

An early example of the bifilar coil can be seen in Nikola Tesla's United States patent 512,340 of 1894. Tesla explains that in some applications (which he does not specify) the self-inductance of a conventional coil is undesired and has to be neutralised by adding external capacitors. The bifilar coil in this configuration has increased self-capacitance, thereby saving the cost of the capacitors. It is notable that this is "not" the kind of bifilar winding used in non-inductive wirewound resistors where the windings are wired anti-series to null out self-inductance.

ee also

References

* [http://www.magnetricity.com/NeoG/Bifilar.php Tesla's patent]
* [http://www.leachintl2.com/english/english2/vol6/properties/how7.htm Bifilar relay coils]

External links

Patents

* Nikola Tesla - US patent|512340 - "Coil for Electro-Magnets" - 1893, July 7 - Bifilar coil winding technique