Electrorheological effects at high shear rate

Much attention has been given to electrorheological (ER) fluids because of the ER effect, which has been described by a large number of researchers as a notable increase in the apparent viscosity of a fluid upon the application of an electric field. The description of ER effects is, however, not accurate at high shear rates. To clarify the discrepancy, we analyze and compute the apparent viscosity as a function of shear rate for ER fluid flow between rotating coaxial cylinders in the presence of an electric field. The theoretical predictions show that the increase of electric intensity contributes little to the apparent viscosity enhancement at high shear rates, while ER effects for ER fluids with a higher polarization rate still exist and ER devices possess controllability in this regime. Description of the ER effect by the apparent viscosity leads to an unrealistic conclusion that ER effects disappear at high shear rates, because the apparent viscosity of ER fluids approaches the value for Newtonian fluids. Therefore, it is concluded that the proper description of ER effects, i.e. one that holds uniformly for any strain rate when ER effects exist, is manifested by a remarkable increase in the extra stress rather than in the apparent viscosity of ER fluids.