Published March 9, 1992 | Version v1
Journal article

Rheology of electrorheological fluids

  • 1. The James Franck Institute and Department of Physics, The University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637 (United States)
  • 2. Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185 (United States)

Description

We present experimental and theoretical results on the shear thinning of electrorheological fluids. Rheological measurements on a model fluid consisting of monodisperse silica spheres immersed in a dielectric liquid show a power-law dependence μ∝γ-Δ of the apparent viscosity μ on the strain rate γ, with Δ in the range Δ=0.68--0.93. We present a theoretical treatment of steady-state cluster formation in applied electric and shear fields, which correctly predicts the observed power-law shear thinning albeit with an exponent Δ=2/3. We observe no true yield stress in this material

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review Letters
Journal Volume
68
Journal Issue
10
Journal Page Range
p. 1519-1522.
ISSN
0031-9007
CODEN
PRLTAO