Microgravity research as a tool for the investigation of effects in magnetic fluids

The magnetic control of ferrofluids, provided by a magnetic volume force ac ting on the fluid in concurrence to gravitational forces, opens interesting fields for basic as well as application oriented research and for the desi gn of applications using ferrofluids as acting media. The concurrence betwe en magnetic and gravitational force respectively can often, especially in t he investigation of new effects in not optimized systems, become a problem for experimental research with magnetic liquids. The possibilities to exclu de gravitational forces by using special experimental facilities providing an environment with strongly reduced gravitational acceleration will be dis cussed, and the special chances for magnetic fluid research will be outline d here. Using a special example - the search for viscoelastic properties in commercial magnetic fluids - the interaction of usual terrestrial and micr ogravity experiments will be demonstrated. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier S cience B.V. All rights reserved.