Numerical treatment of free surface problems in ferrohydrodynamics

Abstract

The numerical treatment of free surface problems in ferrohydrodynamics is considered.Starting from the general model, special attention is paid to field–surface and flow–surfaceinteractions. Since in some situations these feedback interactions can be partly or even fullyneglected, simpler models can be derived. The application of such models to the numericalsimulation of dissipative systems, rotary shaft seals, equilibrium shapes of ferrofluid drops,and pattern formation in the normal-field instability of ferrofluid layers is given. Ournumerical strategy is able to recover solitary surface patterns which were discoveredrecently in experiments.