Effect of the strong magnetic field on the magnetic interaction between two non-magnetic particles migrating in a conductive fluid

¹  Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Kasteelpark Arenberg 44, BE-3001 Heverlee (Leuven), Belgium, EU
²  Department of Electrical Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, BE-3001 Heverlee (Leuven), Belgium, EU

Corresponding author: zhisun@126.com

Received: 23 September 2008
Accepted: 1 December 2008

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the interaction between two non-magnetic particles migrating in a conductive fluid due to an imposed strong magnetic field. A repulsive force induced by the conductive fluid flow around the particles is first derived and calculated for a concrete example. From the numerical results, a counteracting behavior with the interparticle magnetic dipole-dipole attractive force is found to exist at a critical particle size which makes the particles controllable under strong magnetic fields (e.g., B > 10 T). This renders a better understanding of recent experimental results and provides a basis to control the particle size distribution using strong magnetic fields for materials processing.