Investigations of field instability of ferrofluid in hypergravity and microgravity

Abstract

The field instability of the free surface of ferrofluid was investigated under microgravity and hypergravity environments conducted by parabolic flight. It is observed that the perturbation was suppressed under hypergravity, whereas at the microgravity condition, it appeared to have only slight increase in the amplitude of the perturbation peaks compared to the case of ground condition. Besides, an observation of peak-trough distance showed that not only the peak, but the trough was also very much dependent on the applied magnetic field. The difference of magnetic pole (north and south) had shown to be a factor to the perturbation as well.