Abstract
A magnetic field applicable MR fluid shear flow device consisting of circular gap between rotational and fixed disks has been developed to visualize the formation and breaking behavior of the particle cluster or column in shear flow mode of MR fluids under relatively strong magnetic field up to about 0.8 T. The closed magnetic circuit with less magnetic loss is designed to apply a strong uniform magnetic field to the MR fluid filled in the circular gap between rotational and fixed disks using the JMAG magnetic field analysis software. The rotational disk is driven to induce the shear flow at a constant shear rate by a speed controlled motor. In this paper, the details of the design are described and the measured magnetic field applied to the MR fluid are compared to the numerical estimated results. The developed MR fluid shear flow device successfully performed the visualization of the formation and breaking behavior of the particle column in the shear flow mode.
