Preface

The field of magnetorheology has expanded and advanced to such a great extent over the past two decades that a book offering key perspectives on the field was in order. Magnetorheological (MR) fluids were invented over 60 years ago and there remain many challenges in the fundamental understanding of MR fluids, yet the development of applications using this technology continues to be robust. One only has to look to the millions of MR shock absorbers installed in primary suspensions of automobiles. The first installation of these devices was in the Cadillac STS sedan, and was pioneered by General Motors, Lord Corporation and Adelphi in the late 1990's and early 2000's. The 2014 Corvette continues to offer Magnetic Selective Ride Control (MSRC), and MSRC is offered in the premium primary suspension packages. Magnetorheological shock absorbers are available for the primary suspensions of many vehicles offered by Ferrari, Audi, Acura, and GM.

The genesis of this book project was the 12th International Conference on Electrorheological Fluids and Magnetorheological Suspensions that was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from August 16-20, 2010. This conference was organized by Prof. Rongjia Tao, Professor and Chair of the Dept. of Physics at Temple University, who served as the conference chair. As the 12th in a series of biennial conferences with a focus on magnetorheology, I was particularly intrigued by many of the 15 plenary and invited lectures that were presented at this conference. Dr Leanne Marle, Commissioning Editor at the Royal Society of Chemistry, approached me, at the suggestion of Professor Mohsen Shahinpoor, to put together an edited book on magnetorheology. I then corresponded with several of the plenary and other speakers from this conference to write chapters based on their own research in the field of magnetorheology and applications. The annual SPIE Smart Structures and Materials also has recurring sessions each year on magnetorheological fluids and applications, and I also asked some contributors to this conference to write a chapter. Because of the enthusiastic support of the authors of the book chapters, I agreed to undertake this editing project.

The scope of the book is broad in the sense that the first part of the book is devoted to advances in the physics and chemistry of magnetorheological fluids, while the second part is devoted to applications of magnetorheological fluids across domains ranging from aerospace, to medical devices, to optical polishing.

The first eight chapters of the book present significant advances in our understanding of magnetorheology. Topics range from the use of nanofibers to enhance MR fluid properties, to magnetoelasticity, magnetorheological tribology, the use of coatings to improve MR fluid performance, ensuring performance of MR fluids at temperature extremes, super-strong MR fluids. These first eight chapters demonstrate that the physics and chemistry of magnetorheological fluids continues to be an interesting and challenging field for innovative and ground breaking research.

One hallmark of a successful technology is the transition of that technology from the laboratory to prototypical and/or commercial applications. The second group of eight chapters focuses on applications of MR fluids, such as hybrid magnetic circuits that offer improved fail-safe and multi-functional MR damper capability, novel magnetorheological damper valves exploiting flow through a porous media, aerospace applications such as helicopter lag dampers and mitigation of shock loads, high precision optical polishing, and haptic devices for medical applications.

This volume of the Smart Materials book series, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, could only have completed with the help of many enthusiastic supporters. I would like to thank Professor Mohsen Shahinpoor, who serves as one of the editors of this book series, and Dr Leanne Marle, who served as the commissioning editor, for encouraging me to edit this volume in the RSC Smart Materials book series. As this book progressed, I received patient encouragement from Mrs Alice Toby-Brant, who served as the Commissioning Administrator. During the final stage of editing the book, I stayed for a week at a house in Fenwick Island, Delaware, and interspersed editing with walks on its Atlantic beaches. Mrs Toby-Brant seemed to instantaneously answer every query that I had during that week and made the editing process an efficient one. The production staff at Royal Society of Chemistry did a marvelous job at every stage, and I thank all of them for their efforts. I also want to thank all of the authors who contributed to this book and for their strong support of this project. As a result of the many opportunities for technical and social interactions at the International Conference on ER Fluids and MR Suspensions, the SPIE Smart Structures and Materials, and other conferences, I am pleased to count these contributing authors as among not only my colleagues, but also my friends.

The intent is that this volume will spur new research and innovation in the field of magnetorheology, and provide insights to current practitioners as well inspiring new researchers and practitioners to contribute to this exciting field. I am sure that I speak for all of the contributing authors when I say that we sincerely hope the readers of this volume will enjoy reading these pages as much as we have had putting this volume together.

Norman M. Wereley