Parallel Simulation of Transient Magnetorheological Direct Shear Flows Using Millions of Particles

Magnetorheological (MR) fluids consist of micrometer scale iron particles mixed in a carrier fluid, and have found widespread use in semiactive dampers due to their ability to develop a yield stress. Under shear, MR fluids form lamellar sheets, however simulation work has been unable to demonstrate this behavior in fluid elements of experimental volume scales (~ 1 mm), as it requires simulating over one million particles. Nvidia´s CUDA environment enables us to simulate at this scale. We then measure sheet formation using metrics of chain and sheet formation, and examine the effects of simulation volume scale on sheet formation.