A new ER valve composed of multilayer mesh electrodes

In many cases, ER valves are required to be used at lower operating voltages. For example, to develop a two-dimensional Braille matrix display, it is necessary to lay out many ER valves and control each Braille dot independently. If the commonly used parallel plate electrodes are applied, a low voltage can only be used when the electrode gap is very small, which will make the ER valve flow resistance very large, thus making it difficult to achieve effective control. A new type of ER valve composed of multilayer mesh electrodes was designed, which are arranged vertically in the direction of ER fluid flow. The flow rate of the ER valve is determined by the opening ratio of the mesh electrodes. This type of mesh electrode results in a more complex electric field distribution, which has a different action pattern on ER fluid yield stress compared to parallel electrodes. The non-uniform electric field generated by mesh electrodes under different operating voltages was simulated using COMSOL software, and the pressure drops of ER valves with various sizes of mesh electrodes under different voltages were experimentally investigated. The results indicate that the longitudinal electric field component plays a dominant role, and the stress of the ER fluid exhibits a periodic and gradient distribution. This valve exhibits good ER performance when the applied voltage is much lower than that of parallel electrodes. At the same time, the flow rate of the ER valve can be increased by enlarging the opening ratio of the mesh electrodes. Even if the applied voltage is 180 V, the pressure drop of the ER valve is large enough and the operation stability is good. This new type of ER valve makes the device small in size, easy to control intelligently and low cost. Multilayer mesh electrodes also have universal application value in ER technology.