Aggregation Kinetics in Electro-Rheological Fluids

We study the aggregation kinetics of Electro-Rheological Fluid particles which interact through dipoles induced by an external electric field and experience negligible thermal motion. For a system in d-dimensions, our theoretical calculations show that the average cluster size s av increases with time t as s av ∝ t d /( d +3) . This result shows good agreement with experiments in 3 dimensions, and with computer simulations in 2 dimensions. It also shows good qualitative agreement with the dynamic scaling theory of the cluster-cluster aggregation model.