Electrorheology: Statics and dynamics

The interaction between nanoparticles and an electric field is explored from the electrorheological (ER) point of view, using variational formulations for both the static and dynamic characteristics. In the first part the static characteristics of the ER fluid, consisting of a dispersion of solid particles in a liquid, is detailed by using the spectral representation approach for the effective dielectric constant. Predictions concerning the ground state structure, yield stress, upper bounds on the ER effect are presented together with comparisons to experimental results. The giant ER effect, involving a different paradigm of permanent electric dipoles, is described phenomenologically. In the second part the ER fluid dynamics is formulated via the variational principle of Onsager. Predictions of the model are compared with experiments. It is shown that the phenomenon of the diminishing ER effect at high shear rates may be mitigated by the planar interdigital electrode configuration.