LIQUID-STATE PROPERTIES OF ELECTRORHEOLOGICAL FLUIDS

We examine a simple model of the liquid state of an electrorheological fluid, wit emphasis on the role of many-particle (local-field) effects. The induced dipole moments are treated as internal degrees of freedom. The distribution function for these dipole moments is calculated self-consistently within the mean-spherical approximation (MSA). The present MSA formalism is more rigorous and slightly more general than the ''mean-field'' treatment by Adriani and Gast [Phys. Fluids 31, 2757 (1988)]. We also use a more accurate MSA correlation function which leads to numerical results suggestive of a phase transition out of the liquid state at a critical value of the dimensionless dipole interaction strength.