Effects of Electrode Geometry on the Performance of Electrorheological Fluid Valves

Abstract

One of the key factors affecting the performance of electrorheological (ER) fluid devices is the geometry of the electrodes, which also affects the geometry of the device itself. For an ER fluid valve, the pressure drop and the flow rate characteristics dictate the performance and efficiency of the device. The geometrical configurations considered in applications up to now mainly involve two parallel surfaces, most of these being parallel flat electrodes and annular electrode configurations. However, there are other electrode configurations that may be potentially more efficient than the traditional parallel flat electrode configurations. The more complicated the geometry, the more complicated is the flow profile, the electric field and the modelling of the valve. In this paper, the performance of ER fluid valves based on the traditional parallel flat electrode configurations is compared with those of ER fluid valves based on square teeth and tapered electrode configurations. In the tests conducted, the pressures at the inlet and outlet of the valves were recorded and used to give an indication of the performance of the valves. The static and dynamic yield pressures of different ER valve geometrical configurations were characterised. From the experimental data, the characteristic operating curves for the different electrode configurations were obtained.