On the macroscopic–mesoscopic mixture of a magnetorheological fluid

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the modelling of a magnetorheological (MR) fluid in the presence of an applied magnetic field as a twofolded mixture—a macroscopic fluid continuum and mesoscopic multi-solid continua. By assigning to each solid particle a vectorial mesoscopic variable, which is defined as the nearest relative position vector with respect to other particles, the solid medium of the MR fluid is further treated as a mixture consisting of different components, specified by these mesoscopic variables. The treatment of multi-solid continua is similar to that in the mesoscopic theory of liquid crystals. However, the key difference lies in the fact that the time-discontinuity of the defined vectorial mesoscopic variable will give rise to a ‘pseudo’ chemical reaction in the solid continuum. The equation of the phenomenological mesoscopic distribution function of the solid continuum then has an additional production term from the pseudo chemical reaction, analogous to the collision term appearing in the Boltzmann equation. The mesoscopic and macroscopic balance equations are then derived and by assuming the special constitutive relations the macroscopic equation for the second moment of the distribution function can be obtained.