Ferrofluids lubrication: a status report

Ferrofluids (FFs) are stable colloidal suspensions composed of single-domain magnetic nanoparticles dispersed in a carrier liquid. And it is an intelligent material, exhibiting normal liquid behaviour coupled with superparamagnetic properties. Since the properties and the location of these fluids can easily be influenced by a magnetic field, FFs have recently attracted many scientific, industrial and commercial applications. Lubrication is one of the most important applications for FFs, and the advantage of FFs as lubricant, over the conventional ones, is that the former can be retained at the desired location with moderate magnetic fields. The main focus of this paper is to present a comprehensive review on FFs lubrication theories based on the three flow models of Neuringer-Rosensweig, Shliomis and Jenkins. Besides, a few experimental studies on FFs lubrication are discussed briefly. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.