Abstract
The magnetic levitation force exerted on the magnets immersed in ferrofluid is the theoretical basis of various application of ferrofluid. In this paper, based on the equivalent magnetic charge models and the equivalent current models of cylindrical magnets, magnetic charge image method and current image method are used to calculate the magnetic levitation force exerted on the cylindrical magnets immersed in ferrofluid respectively. The magnetic levitation force under the same conditions is calculated by the Comsol Multiphysics software according to the mechanical formula after the distribution of the magnetic field is obtained using finite element method. The magnetic levitation force is also measured experimentally, whose results are compared with the theoretical results obtained by the three methods. The analysis shows that the variation law of the magnetic levitation force and the influence by various parameters can be evaluated by the calculation with magnetic charge image method and current image method, but there is great difference between the theoretical results and the experimental results, and the greatest difference are 46% and 62% respectively. The agreement between the theoretical and the experimental results is quite good when the finite element method is used, whose greatest difference is 9%.