When we touch a conductor with eddy current flowing on it, will we get a shock?Because in my opinion there's an induced EMF due to which eddy current flows (assume the conductor is in the region where magnetic flux is changing) and we are grounded, so there's a potential difference accross us and conducting path is established.
But to the contrary we don't feel a shock when we touch a conducting vessel placed on an induction stove.I think the same principle applies here too.
So will we get a shock when we get a shock when we touch a conductor with eddy current on it?Why or why not?Pls explain
Correct me if I'm wrong.
2 Answers2
To get a shock you need to have some current passing through your body. So the answer is that it depends on the details.
If we are talking about a piece of metal with no holes or thin gaps in it then it is difficult to make yourself part of the circuit by simply touching the surface - the current flows inside the metal which is a way better conductor than human skin. This is the situation with the pan on an induction stove.
If the conductor looks a coil with its leads connected by a resistor then there can be a substantial voltage across the resistor. If you then put yourself in parallel to the resistor (for example by grabbing both current leads of the coil simultaneously) you can get a shock.
One note: Electrostatic (scalar) potential is of little use in these situations. The electric field responsible for the eddy currents is non-conservative. That means it cannot be written as a gradient of some scalar function - the scalar potential is not defined. What you need is thevector potential.
Eddy currents are produced in conductors due to changing magnetic flux. In the induction stove, usually flux is changed by varying magnetic field. The changing field passes through the conducting vessel. Hence the flux linked to the vessel changes and eddy current is induced. Assume that someone touches the vessel. Now, as that person is near the coil of induction stove, the flux linked to his body too varies with time. Now, the combination of the vessel and the person can be considered as a single system (conductor). So, eddy current paves its path throughout the new conductor. But he doesn't feel the shock, as the resistance of the body is too large as compared to the vessel. So the induced eddy currents are mostly confined within the vessel. So the answer is current flows but we don't feel the shock.
This may give raise to a question that if there were some situation where some situation where magnetic field through the conductor does not pass through the person, then no current should flow through him. But, for the laws of electromagnetism to be obeyed, the magnetic field lines should form closed loops which are continuous and differentiable (because discontinuity implies existence of magnetic monopolies and non differentiability would imply that field can have more than one direction at a point). Hence always some changing flux is linked to the body. So the treatment of the vessel and human together as one conductor may be validated.
This answer may be applied to the case of any conducting object with linked changing magnetic flux (mentioned in first paragraph of the question).
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