Static yield stress of ferrofluid-based magnetorheological fluids

In this work, the yield stress of ferrofluid-based magnetorheological fluids (F-MRF) was investigated. The fluids are composed of a ferrofluid as the liquid carrier and micro-sized iron particles as magnetic particles. The physical and magnetorheological properties of the F-MRF have been investigated and compared with a commercial mineral oil-based MR fluid. With the addition of a ferrofluid, the anti-sedimentation property of the commercial MR fluids could be significantly improved. The static yield stress of the F-MRF samples with four different weight fractions (ϕ) of micro-sized iron particles were measured using three different testing modes under various magnetic fields. The effects of weight fraction, magnetic strength, and test mode on the yielding stress have been systematically studied. Finally, a scaling relation, \(\tau _{\rm ys} = {\rm a}B^{\rm b}\), was proposed for the yield stress modeling of the F-MRF system.