Je. Martin et al., STRUCTURE OF AN ELECTRORHEOLOGICAL FLUID IN STEADY SHEAR, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics, 50(4), 1994, pp. 3263-3266
We report a real-time, two-dimensional light scattering study of the s
tructure of an electrorheological fluid under steady shear. When an el
ectric field is applied to the quiescent fluid, particles chain along
the electric field lines and cause strong light scattering lobes to ap
pear at a finite scattering wave vector q orthogonal to the field line
s. We find that when the sample is subjected to steady shear a steady
state scattering pattern emerges with lobes that are rotated in the di
rection of fluid vorticity. The angle of rotation is found to increase
as the cube root of the shear rate, in agreement with a theoretical p
rediction of the steady state structure of fragmenting particle drople
ts.