Yield behavior of magnetorheological suspensions

The rheology of suspensions containing magnetic particles of micrometer size is strongly modified by the application of a magnetic field. We first describe a model experiment where the suspension is made of spheres of millimeter size and we show that the experimental dependence of the yield stress is well predicted by a non-affine model where the chains of particles break in the middle. Then we compare these predictions with some experimental results obtained on suspensions of carbonyl iron; it is shown that this model does not apply in this case. We propose a mechanism where after some friction on the walls the aggregates begin to rotate and break at a strain smaller than unity, due to the interactions with other aggregates.