PERFORMANCE CHARACTERIZATION AND SELECTION OF ELECTRORHEOLOGICAL FLUID FOR DAMPER, USEFUL FOR RECOIL MINIMIZATION IN HEAVY-DUTY APPLICATIONS

A detailed process of synthesis, characterization and selection of Electro Rheological (ER) fluid specifically for damper of recoil system of an artillery gun has been performed. Significant research efforts have been devoted and incorporated to develop suitable smart fluid damping system for heavy duty applications. In view of controlled damping system, the ER fluid is required to exhibit necessary characteristics like high viscosity; high yield strength, low sedimentation rate etc. are listed in the beginning. In this work, nine samples are synthesized by varying concentration and physical structure of ER fluid ingredients. The main ingredients preferred are barium titanyl oxalate powder particles with and without Urea or Acrylamide coating as polarizable particles, silicon oil as carrier fluid along with oleic acid as additives. The bare barium titanyl oxalate (BTO) powder particles are directly procured from market hence its average particle size and urea or acrylamide coating size is determined by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The XRD and BUTR characterization is performed to check presence of respective ingredient in synthesized material. The prepared ER samples are characterized for rheological and electric properties. The selected ER fluid sample has reported yield stress of 20 kPa at 3 kV/mm with very low sedimentation rate as per the requirement proposed in damping system application of recoil mechanism of artillery gun