Dynamic Simulation of the Temporal Response of Microstructure Formation in Magnetorheological Fluids

Efficient numerical simulations of microstructure development in magnetorheological (MR) fluids are conducted. The simulations, which are based upon a fast multipole algorithm, treat the magnetic inclusions as two-dimensional continuum magnetic entities. The development of microstructure is quantified by computing and recording the time evolution of the effective permeability of the composite fluid. Such a principle has been previously exploited for the experimental measurements of microstructure development [Jolly, Bender and Mathers, ERMR'97, Yonezawa, Japan 1997]. As was observed experimentally, numerical simulations reveal the evolution of microstructure to be multimodal in nature. Unlike the experiments, the numerical simulations afford us the ability to observe the physical mechanisms associated with various modes.