The Influence of Base Oil and Thixotropy on Magnetorheological Property of MRF

Abstract

Adopting carbonyl iron powder and silicone/mineral oil as suspend phase and dispersed phase separately,and silica, kaolin as lubricant additives,magnetorheological (MR) fluid was prepared by ball milling. The apparent viscosity of base oil and shear stress were measured on a modified rotational viscometer. The experimental results demonstrated that an appropriate viscosity of base oil contributed to the rheology of MRF. Adding a small amount of thixotropy into MRF had little influence on zero-field viscosity, which facilitated the application of MRF to maintain adequate liquidity. Under low shear rate conditions, the shear stress was improved by adding thixotropy to some extent, especially in the mineral oil-based magnetorheological fluid, in which the role of silica was superior to kaolin.