• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.51 no.10
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• pp.477-482
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• 2002

One of the key technologic requirements for rotary blood pumps is the sealing of the motor shaft. A mechanical seal, a journal bearing, magnetic coupling, and magnetic suspension have been developed, but they have drawbacks such as wear, thrombus formation, and power consumption. A magnetic fluid seal is durable, simple, and non power consumptive. Long-term experiments confirmed these advantages. The seal body was composed of a Nd-Fe-B magnet and two pole pieces; the seal was formed by injecting magnetic fluid into the gap (50${\mu}m$) between the pole pieces and the motor shaft. To contain the ferro-fluid in the seal and to minimize the possibility of magnetic fluid making contact with blood, a shield with a small cavity was attached to the pole piece. While submerged in blood, the sealing pressure of the seal was measured and found to be 31kPa with magnetic fluid LS-40 (saturated magnetization, 24.3 KA/m) at a motor speed of 10,000 rpm and 53kPa under static conditions(0mmHg). The specially designed magnetic fluid seal for keeping liquids out is useful for axial flow blood pumps. The magnetic fluid seal was incorporated into an intra-cardiac axial flow blood pump.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10b
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• pp.373-374
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• 2002

Magnetic fluid seals are used in a wide variety of gas and dust sealing applications. However, it is difficult to seal for liquid because of its characteristic. This study will be a basic guide for a magnetic fluid seal for liquid, especially for blood to be practically used in medical instruments such as rotary blood pumps by clarifying its seal properties. Sealing pressure test, durability test, and hemolysis test have been conducted for this seal. In this study, magnetic fluid, sealing fluid, eccentricity ratio, revolution speed were selected as parameters. As results of the tests, it has been found that the properties of magnetic fluid seal depend on the solvent and the saturation magnetization of magnetic fluid. Therefore, the selection of magnetic fluid is important for this seal. It also has been found that eccentricity ratio of the shaft caused harmful effect for seal properties. In conclusion, it has been showed that magnetic fluid seals could be possibly used in medical instruments such as blood pumps when blood come in contact with magnetic fluids.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.299-305
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• 2017

Magnetic fluid, a new type of magnetic material, is a colloidal liquid constituted of nano-scale ferromagnetic particles suspended in carrier fluid. Magnetic fluid sealing is one of the most successful applications of magnetic fluid. As a new type of seal offering the advantages of no leakage, long life and high reliability, the magnetic fluid seal has been widely utilized under vacuum- and low-pressure-differential conditions. In practical applications, for improved pressure capacity, a multistage sealing structure is always used. However, in engineering applications, a uniform distribution of magnetic fluid under each tooth often cannot be achieved, which problem weakens the overall pressure capacity of the seals. In order to improve the pressure capacity of magnetic fluid seals and broaden their applications, the present study theoretically and experimentally analyzed the degree of non-uniform distribution of multistage magnetic fluid seals. A mathematical model reflecting the relationship between the pressure capacity and the distribution of magnetic fluid under a single tooth was constructed, and a formula showing the relationship between the volume of magnetic fluid and its contact width with the shaft was derived. Furthermore, the relationship of magnetic fluid volume to capacity was analyzed. Thereby, the causes of non-uniform distribution could be verified: injection of magnetic fluid; the assembly of magnetic fluid seals; the change of magnetic fluid silhouette under pressure loading; the magnetic fluid sealing mechanism of pressure transmission, and seal failure. In consideration of these causes, methods to improve the pressure capacity of magnetic fluid seals was devised (and is herein proposed).

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.365-369
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• 2010

Magnetic fluid seal is characterized by its simple design, low friction and being dustless. Those advantages are deduced from the fact that the sealing element is not a solid such as rubber or plastic but it is a fluid. Those are critical for application to a rotating shaft which is inserted into a vacuum chamber where high level of vacuum and cleanness are required. For the reason the magnetic fluid seal has become a standard for vacuum chambers for semiconductor and LCD processing. It should be noted that its sealing performance is sensitive to temperature. If necessary, water cooling should be considered. Thus anticipation of the temperature distribution of the magnetic fluid seal is important before applying it. In this paper an FEM analysis of the heat transfer has been executed and compared with experimental results. An overall convective heat transfer coefficient has been adopted for the analysis, which results in satisfactory consistency of the theoretical and experimental results.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.264-268
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• 2002

Magnetic fluid is a very stable colloid that is attracted by magnetic force as wholly. The magnetic fluids is composed with 10 nm magnetic materials such as magnetite, iron etc., which is dispersed homogeneously in solvent by coating surfactant on their surface. Also this colloid is not separated into magnetic particles and solvent even under magnetic field, centrifugal force, gravity. Due to these properties, the magnetic fluids is used in high vacuum seal, exclusion seal, damper, etc. I would like to introduce the specific properties and applications of the magnetic fluids.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.32-38
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• 1998

This paper presents the magnetic flux distributions of a ferrofluid seal at the sealing gap between the pole pieces and the rotating shaft. The optimized shape of pole pieces has been determined by using the computer simulations. The computed results indicate that the sloped pole piece of 27$^{\circ}$ shows good flux distributions compared with that of the conventional flat pole pieces and may reduce frictional heats due to a reduced surface contact areas of magnetic fluids.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.79-83
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• 2011

Magnetic seal uses a magnetic fluid to seal a gap between a rotating shaft and housing. It is distinguished from other kinds of seals from the fact that solid contact does not occur in the seal. This implies that it is free from solid rubbing thus dustless and provides a clean circumstance. That is the reason why the magnetic seal is used exclusively for most of vacuum chambers in semiconductor process where dustless clean circumstance is critical. A magnetic seal has been developed of which design parameters are determined based on published data, and an air pressure test has been done to examine its sealing capability. Effects of some design parameters have been studied through FEM analysis. The results show some notable aspects of design parameters and provide suggestions for developing the seals. Regarding the sealing capacity of the magnetic seal the factor to match the theoretical value with the actual one was found to be 0.4~0.7, which means still there is some discrepancy between theory and actual.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.326-334
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• 1994

This paper describes the fabrication of the hydrophilic magnetic fluid with high viscosity and its application to oil seal apparatus used with the Nd-permanent magnet. The results are as follows. 1) The ultrafine magnetite particles under the size of $100\;{\AA}$ are first coated by the oleic acid ion and again adsorbed by the hydrophilic D. B. S. ion, and there by hydrophilic magnetic fluid with high viscosity could be made by dispersing them into the ethylene glycol. 2) In development of the oil seal apparatus using magnetic fluid and Nd-permanent magnet, the viscosity and magnetic susceptibility show high when the $Fe_{3}O_{4}$ content is over 50%(g/cc) in the fluid, so that such properties could improve highly the capability of oil seal. 3) The maximum of the resisting pressure of the oil seal using the ethylene glycol base magnetic fluid and the Nd-permanent magnet, is about $50\;g/\textrm{cm}^2$, under the condition of this experiment. Therefore the oil seal may not be suitable for the ship engine and the driving part of the automobile, and thus it needs a lot further complementary reserch. However, it is quite favourable for such an oil seal apparatus as speed reducer under the condition of atmospheric pressure.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.56-61
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• 1994

Magnetic fluid is ferromagnetic material in liquid state, so the surface configuration of magnetic fluid affects the magnetic field, and vice versa. To analyze the devices with magnetic fluid, the magnetic field equations and hydrodynamic equation should be solved simultaneously. This paper presents the numerical algorithm to obtain the surface configuration of fluid under the influence of gravity, pressure and magnetic field without conventional sim¬plified assumption. The algorithm consists of nonlinear finite element method and ferro-hydrodynamics, such as Poisson equations and Bernoulli equations, respectively The simulated configurations of fluid are compared with experimental results, and the influence of the amount of fluid and pole piece shape on the seal capacities are analyzed.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.53-61
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• 1997

The performance characteristics of magnetic fluid seals are studied numerically as a function of working gap, pole width, angle of pole sharpening, and shaft speed. The temperature distribution of a magnetic fluid seal with multiple tooth is investigated as a function of the contact fraction of magnetic fluids at the periphery of pole tooth using a finite element method. The most significant design parameter of a magnetic fluid seal is the working gap between the pole pieces and the rotating shaft. The result shows that with increasing the working gap, the friction torque decreases radically. The practical working gap for the pole pieces with triangular tooth zone profile is 0.2-0.4mm. The FEM results indicate that the optimal filling of a magnetic fluid between the pole pieces and the shaft is very important due to the accumulations of nonuniform friction heating within the pole pieces, which may interfere the magnetic circuit flow.