Liquid single- and gas—liquid two-phase flows of magnetic fluid in the presence of a high non-uniform parallel magnetic field

The effect of a non-uniform parallel high magnetic field on flow control characteristics is investigated experimentally for a magnetic fluid single-phase flow and an air—magnetic fluid two-phase flow in a vertical channel. It is found that as the magnetic field strength is increased, the friction factor of the single-phase flow increases significantly. For the two-phase flow, the friction pressure loss and the head pressure loss, which is smaller than the friction loss, are negligibly small compared with the magnetic pressure loss. In the case where air is injected 27.9d upstream from the maximum magnetic field, the air flow is blocked by the magnetic force in the entrance of the magnetic field, which leads to increases in both local void fraction and pressure drop there. In the case where air is injected 1.43d downstream from the maximum magnetic field, the air flow is accelerated, resulting in a decrease in void fraction and an increase in pressure rise. In the latter case and under the present range of experimental conditions, the magnetic pumping head reaches 0.02 MPa at the highest, and the maximum circulation flow rate reaches twice as high as non-magnetically driven flow rate.