Non-contact manipulation of nonmagnetic materials by using a uniform magnetic field: Experiment and simulation

• Published in: Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials Vol. 497; p. 165957
• Main Authors: Li, Xiang, Yu, Peng, Niu, Xiaodong, Yamaguchi, Hiroshi, Li, Decai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.03.2020; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Assembling; Chains; Charged particles; Computational fluid dynamics; Computer simulation; Controllability; Immersed boundary method; Lattice Boltzmann method; Magnetic fields; Magnetic fluid; Magnetic materials; Magnetism; Microparticles; Multiphase flow; Non-contact manipulation; Nonmagnetic materials; Numerical methods; Particle size distribution; Polystyrene resins; Self-assembly; Self-assembly; Magnetic fluid; Lattice Boltzmann method; Immersed boundary method; Nonmagnetic materials; Non-contact manipulation
• ISSN: 0304-8853; 1873-4766
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmmm.2019.165957

•The MFIDSA process of nonmagnetic materials in magnetic fluids is investigated.•An LB model is developed for simulating MFIDSA process in magnetic multiphase flows.•The length of self-assembled structures does not relate with particle-size.•The length of self-assembled structures increases with the external magnetic field. Magnetic field induced dynamic self-assembly (MFIDSA) can be regarded as one of non-contact manipulation method under special category of micro-scale or nano-scale fabrication technique, which is confined to magnetic materials. This study is focused on MFIDSA process of nonmagnetic materials in a magnetic multiphase fluid by using the experimental technique and numerical method. To explore the controllability of MFIDSA process, a series of experiments by using the magnetic multiphase fluid comprising of nonmagnetic polystyrene microparticles with different particle-size distributions were carried out. The relations of the strength of external magnetic field, the average length of self-assembled chain-like structures, and the particle-size distribution of nonmagnetic polystyrene microparticles were investigated experimentally. Meanwhile, to reveal the interaction mechanisms behind the self-assembling behaviours of nonmagnetic materials, an immersed boundary lattice Boltzmann method was applied to simulate the multi-physical field coupled multiphase flows in MFIDSA process. The present work shows that the average length of self-assembled chain-like structures is mainly determined by the strength of external magnetic field, irrespective of the particle-size distribution of nonmagnetic materials. The coincident results of the experiments and numerical simulations provide a guidance on how to manipulate the nonmagnetic materials to form the chain-like structures by magnetic field.