Traditional printed products have to some extent affected the development of smart structures and their application in multiple fields, especially in harsh environments, due to their complex mechanisms and control principles. The 4D printing technology based on magnetically controlled smart materials exploits the advantages of magnetically controlled smart materials with good operability and security, and its printed smart structures can be obtained under magnetic field drive for unfettered remote manipulation and wireless motion control, which expands the application of printed products in complex environments, such as sealed and narrow, and has broad development prospects. At present, magnetically controlled smart material 4D printing technology is still in its infancy, and its theory and application need further in–depth study. To this end, this paper introduces the current status of research on magnetically controlled smart material 4D printing, discusses the printing process, and provides an outlook on its application prospects.

When sealing liquids with magnetic fluid, the interfacial stability problem caused by the interaction between the magnetic fluid and the sealed liquid leads to poor sealing performance. Centrifugal force is generated by the rotation of the sealed liquid in the back blade seal, which forms back pressure to reduce the load of the seal or prevents the sealed liquid from leaking. To reduce the influence of the shaft speed on the sealing performance, a combined magnetic fluid and back blade seal was designed for sealing liquids and a combined seal experiment stand was set up. Theoretical and experimental studies were carried out. The results showed that under a higher shaft speed, the combined seal structure had better sealing performance in which the back blade seal played the main role; the magnetic fluid seal played a major role in stopping and lowering the speed to prevent seal leakage. The combined seal could run stably under different shaft speeds.

In this study, nanoparticles were suspended in L-AN32 total loss system oil. The thixotropic yield behavior and viscoelastic behavior of ferrofluid were analyzed by steady-state and dynamic methods and explained according to the microscopic mechanism of magneto-rheology. The Herschel–Bulkley (H–B) model was used to fit the ferrofluid flow curves, and the observed static yield stress was greater than the dynamic yield stress. Both the static and dynamic yield stress values increased as the magnetic field increased, and the corresponding shear thinning viscosity curve increased more significantly as the magnetic field strength increased. The amplitude scanning results show that the linear viscoelastic region (LVE) is reached when the shear stress is 10%. The frequency scanning results showed that the storage modulus increased with the increase of the frequency at first. The storage modulus increased steadily at a higher frequency range, while the loss modulus increased slowly at the initial stage and rapidly at the later stage. In the amplitude sweep and frequency sweep experiments, the energy storage modulus and loss modulus are enhanced with the decrease of temperature. These findings are helpful to better understand the microscopic mechanism of magneto-rheology of ferrofluids, and also provide guidance for many practical applications.

Magnetic fluid is a field-responsive intelligent fluid, which has the flow characteristics of liquid and the elastic properties of solid. Because of its unique properties, it has a strong application prospect in the fields of magnetic soft robot, intelligent sensor, and so on. Dynamic viscoelasticity is a significant index to investigate the performance of magnetic fluid in the application process. In this paper, the dynamic viscoelasticity of a homemade mineral oil-based magnetic fluid was investigated under oscillatory shear experimental conditions using an MCR302 rheometer, and the effects of different temperatures and magnetic fields on the dynamic viscoelasticity were examined. Amplitude sweeps tests showed that the value of the storage modulus remained constant within the linear viscoelastic region (LVE) and the stable structure was not destroyed. As the magnetic field strength increased or the temperature increased, the range of the linear viscoelastic zone decreased. At large amplitude, the loss modulus will first appear as a peak and then decrease. The frequency sweep experiment showed that the storage modulus and loss modulus increased with the increase in angular frequency, and the greater the magnetic field intensity, the longer the internal structure relaxation time. When the magnetic field was constant, the higher the temperature, the smaller the storage modulus and loss modulus of the magnetic fluid. At high temperature, the loss coefficient of mesmeric fluid was large, and the magnetic fluid was more viscous. The lower the temperature is, the smaller the loss coefficient of the magnetic fluid is, and the magnetic fluid is more pliant. The study of dynamic viscoelasticity of magnetic fluids lays the foundation for establishing the complete structure intrinsic relationship of magnetic fluids and provides guidance for the application of magnetic fluids in magnetic 3D printing, droplet robot, and smart wear.

Theoretically, the velocity distributions of the sealed liquid and magnetic fluid are studied. The velocity of the sealed liquid and magnetic fluid decreases nonlinearly with the increase of the radius. The instability of the interface between magnetic fluid and the sealed liquid is studied. Experimentally, when the rotating speed of the shaft increases, magnetic fluid and the sealed liquid are mixed with each other, and the stability of the interface between magnetic fluid and the sealed liquid is destroyed. The higher the rotational speed of the shaft is, the shorter the time for the interface to remain stable is.

When applied in sealing liquid, the instability of the interface between the magnetic liquid and the sealed liquid in the direct-contact magnetic liquid seal structure will occur and increase, eventually leading to the failure of the magnetic liquid seal. In order to understand the destruction process of the interface between the magnetic liquid and the sealed liquid more intuitively, the two-phase flow of the magnetic liquid and the sealed liquid was simulated numerically. Phase distribution and velocity distribution are obtained through the simulation.