Multifractality in dilute magnetorheological fluids under an oscillating magnetic field

A study of the multifractal characteristics of the structure formed by magnetic particles in a dilute magnetorheological fluid is presented. A quasi-two-dimensional magnetorheological fluid sample is simultaneously subjected to a static magnetic field and a sinusoidal magnetic field transverse to each other. We analyzed the singularity spectrum f(α) and the generalized dimension D(q) of the whole structure to characterize the distribution of the aggregates under several conditions of particle concentration, magnetic field intensities, and liquid viscosity. We also obtained the fractal dimension D(g), calculated from the radius of gyration of the chains, to describe the internal distribution of the particles. We present a thermodynamic interpretation of the multifractal analysis, and based on this, we discussed the characteristics of the structure formed by the particles and its relation with previous studies of the average chain length. We have found that this method is useful to quantitatively describe the structure of magnetorheological fluids, especially in systems with high particle concentration where the aggregates are more complex than simple chains or columns.