Properties of soft magnetic materials:

• Soft magnetic materials are those materials that are easily magnetised and demagnetised and hence these materials are used for making temporary magnets.
• They have low hysteresis loss due to small hysteresis area.
• Susceptibility and permeability is high.
• Coercivity and retentivity values are less. Since they have low retentivity and coercivity, they are not used for making permanent magnets.
• The eddy current loss is less because of high resistivity.

Application of soft magnetic materials:

• The types of applications for soft magnetic materials fall into two main categories: AC and DC.
• In DC applications the material is magnetised in order to perform an operation and then demagnetised at the conclusion of the operation, e.g. an electromagnet on a crane at a scrap yard will be switched on to attract the scrap steel and then switched off to drop the steel.
• In AC applications the material will be continuously cycled from being magnetised in one direction to the other, throughout the period of operation, e.g. a power supply transformer. A high permeability will be desirable for each type of application but the significance of the other properties varies.