On the moment of forces acting on a body in a ferrofluid

Attention is drawn to the appreciable torque which acts on a nonmagnetic body in a ferrofluid when a field is applied. The contribution to the torque made by an external inhomogeneity of the field and the perturbation introduced by the body is considered. It is shown that in fields obtained in practice they may be comparable. A method of calculating the resultant force and the resultant torque is considered. The moment of the forces that act on a cylinder of elliptic section in homogeneous and inhomogeneous fields is calculated. An experimental investigation confirmed the theoretical calculations.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 4, pp. 132–136, July–August, 1980.