Phase Transitions in Electro- and Magnetorheological Fluids

The model of internal structural phase transformations occurring in electro- and magnetorheological fluids under the action of external electric (magnetic) field is presented. The model describes both types of experimentally observed transformations such as the formation of linear chain clusters and bulk dense phases composed of suspension particles. The main qualitative result of this work is the conclusion that the appearance of chain clusters precedes the suspension separation into bulk phases with different particle densities and considerably affects the phase equilibrium diagrams. This conclusion agrees with the results of known experiments.