B-H loop and its modeling are essential for ferromagnetic material characterization and electromagnetic simulation. The objective of this study was to characterize material change by analyzing the corresponding B-H loops and construct a general B-H model for electromagnetic simulation. A B-H loop was decomposed in terms of either ideal or normal magnetization curves, and the respective curves are single-valued functions of B and dB, which can be constructed using harmonic balance method. The B-H loop analysis and modeling were simplified by the loop decomposition approach. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.