11th International Conference on Electrorheological Fluids and Magnetorheological Suspensions

Abstract

Materials with properties controllable by external fields become more and more important for modern product design. Magnetorheological suspensions, electrorheological fluids and ferrofluids are classical examples for such smart materials exhibiting magnetic or electric field dependent properties. Their development over the past 60 years has shown how complex research and development of fluids with tailored properties can be. The demands of potential applications are the driving force for the synthesis of new fluids. The changes in the synthetic process and the composition of the fluids based on an increasing understanding of the relevant microscopic processes leads to certain macroscopic properties of the material. Only intense cooperation between basic and application oriented research, synthesis, characterisation, theory and application design can finally lead to fluids suitable for the envisaged use. The International Conferences on Electrorheological Fluids and Magnetorheological Suspensions have provided over more than 20 years a platform for interdisciplinary discussions strengthening the scientific progress in the field. Besides being a forum for scientific exchange about recent developments in electro- and magnetorheological fluids. The 11th International Conference on Electrorheological Fluids and Magnetorheological Suspensions (ERMR08) which has been organized by the chair of Magnetofluiddynamics at the Technische Universität Dresden in August 2008 in Dresden has continued this fruitful tradition. With more than 180 participants from 24 different countries it has been the largest ERMR meeting during the last decade – a tendency showing the high potential and promising development of the field of electrically and magnetically controllable fluids. A significant proportion of the participants were PhD students, a fact that also highlights the sustainability of the field. In total 85 oral presentations – including 8 plenary talks – and 81 posters were presented at a high scientific level. The scientific program focused primarily on the classical topics in basic and applied research with electrorheological fluids, magnetorheological suspensions and ferrofluids. But among the program highlights were also magnetorheological elastomers, which have been included into the conference program as a special topic in separate sessions for the first time. The present proceedings include 116 peer reviewed papers covering all conferences topics. In contrast to former ERMR proceedings issues we've decided to subdivide this issue into four thematic sections: Electrorheological Fluids, Magnetorheological Suspensions, Ferrofluids and Magnetorheological Elastomers – and to sort the contributions inside these sections alphabetically by the name of the first author. The reason for this sorting has been the fact that more and more contributions have a clear interdisciplinary character and cannot be assigned to a certain subtopic. The high amount of interdisciplinary papers is indeed a very positive and forward-looking development in this research field, strengthening the future development. The organization of a large international conference requires the hard effort of many individuals and we would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody involved in this project. We would also like to thank the members of the international advisory and program committees, the plenary speakers, the sponsors and of course all participants for the very successful conference. Stefan Odenbach and Dmitry Borin Technische Universität Dresden, Germany Editors