• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.42-48
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• 1998

Electro-Rheological (ER) fluid is a class of functional fluid whose apparent viscosity can be varied by the applied electric field strength. The ER fluid is classified into two types; one is a dispersive fluid and the other is a homogeneous. Dispersive ER fluid is a colloidal suspension of fine semiconducting particles in a dielectric liquid and liquid crystal (LC) is classed as homogeneous type ER fluid. LC has been originally developed for some electronic display devices. Various mechanical components applying ER fluid have been developed, and the their performance typically depends on the characteristics of ER fluid which have generally been evaluated by a rotational viscometer. However, the ER fluid introduced into various mechanical components undergoes not only simple shear flow but press flow or oscillating flow. For the evaluation of ER fluid, the authors developed an reciprocating type viscometer. The amplitude is controlled on 5 mm at the frequency from 50 to 1000 Hz. In the present paper, the performance of several types of ER fluid is evaluated by the reciprocating type viscometer and compared with those evaluated by a rotational viscometer.