Kinematics and deformation of ferrofluid droplets under magnetic actuation

This paper reports the experimental results on kinematics and deformation of ferrofluid droplets driven by planar coils. Ferrofluid droplets act as liquid magnets, which can be controlled and manipulated by an external magnetic field. In our experiments, the magnetic field was generated by two pairs...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nguyen, Nam-Trung, Beyzavi, Ali, Ng, Kon Meng, Huang, Xiaoyang
Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/100161
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/24098
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:This paper reports the experimental results on kinematics and deformation of ferrofluid droplets driven by planar coils. Ferrofluid droplets act as liquid magnets, which can be controlled and manipulated by an external magnetic field. In our experiments, the magnetic field was generated by two pairs of planar coils, which were fabricated on a double-sided printed circuit board. The first pair of coils constrains the ferrofluid droplet to a one-dimensional motion. The second pair generates the magnetic gradient needed for the droplet motion. The direction of the motion can be controlled by changing the sign of the gradient or of the driving current. Kinematic characteristics of the droplet such as the velocity–position diagram and the aspect ratio of the droplet are investigated. The analysis and discussion are based on the different parameters such as the droplet size, the viscosity of the surrounding medium, and the driving current. This simple actuation concept would allow the implementation of lab-on-a-chip platforms based on ferrofluid droplets.