Recent Developments in the Properties and Composition of Electrorheological Fluids

Recent studies suggest that an alternate if not primary way that ER fluids flow is not by chain breakage as has been assumed but by the development of slip planes parallel to the chain directions. This might help to better understand mechanisms associated with the strengths of ER fluids. This lateral slip would be essentially independent of particle interactions in the field direction. Attempts to interfere with this slip by the addition of small amounts of foreign particles have resulted in some modest but significant strength increases. An additional area of significant advancement is by making the matrix liquids ER active. Various base ER fluid compositions are shown to have dramatically enhanced shear stresses when dispersed into poly(hexyl isocyanate) solutions.