PERFORMANCE OF PIN ELECTRODE ER VALVES

Abstract

This work concentrates on the development of an uncommon type of electrodes to be used in electrorheological devices. Rather than using electrodes with constant gap, pin electrodes are used, in order to achieve variation in the gap. The device described has pins running across the direction of the flow. The ER fluid moves through rows and columns of pin electrodes of different polarities. One of the main problems would be the development of the head pressure drop as the number of rows of pins increases. The work presents different configurations that could be constructed using pin electrodes. One of the configurations is developed and tested as to the pressure gradients that could be achieved when different magnitudes of electric potentials are applied. The results are compared to the ones obtained when two of the constructed modules are aligned one after the other for the tests.