Jn. Foulc et al., MACROSCOPIC MODEL OF INTERACTION BETWEEN PARTICLES IN AN ELECTRORHEOLOGICAL FLUID, Journal of electrostatics, 33(1), 1994, pp. 103-112
The particle-particle interaction in an electrorheological fluid is in
vestigated starting from the basic remark that, under DC conditions, t
he electric field distribution is controlled by the conduction propert
ies of both solid particles and carrying liquid. An experiment on a la
rge scale model sphere of very slightly conducting material facing a m
etallic plate is developed in particular by varying the even weaker bu
t controlled conductivity of the surrounding liquid. The measurement o
f the attraction force between sphere and plate reveals two regimes of
variation of the force as a function of the applied electric field. A
n approximate analysis taking into account the non-linear character of
electrical conduction of the liquid at high electric fields leads to
formula which fairly well account for the observed dependence on the e
lectric field as well as on the ratio GAMMA of solid and liquid conduc
tivities.