Citation: Concilio, A.; Ameduri, S.;
Dimino, I.; Pecora, R.
Magneto-Rheological Fluids. Appl.
Sci. 2023, 13, 5044. https://doi.org/
10.3390/app13085044
Received: 31 March 2023
Accepted: 11 April 2023
Published: 18 April 2023
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
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4.0/).
applied
sciences
Editorial
Magneto-Rheological Fluids
Antonio Concilio
1,
* , Salvatore Ameduri
1
, Ignazio Dimino
1
and Rosario Pecora
2
1
Adaptive Structures Department, The Italian Aerospace Research Centre, 81043 Capua, Italy;
i.dimino@cira.it (I.D.)
2
Industrial Engineering Department, University of Naples “Federico II”, 80125 Napoli, Italy
* Correspondence: a.concilio@cira.it
Magneto-rheological fluids, or MRF, have been known for a long time in the techno-
logical and scientific community. They have great potential and, as well, have important
showstoppers. This combination is always conflicting and may explain why applications of
such excellent materials are not yet widespread, despite their market value having already
topped the impressive figure of almost 1.5 billion EUR worldwide, and being projected to
about 6 billion EUR in 2030.
An MRF is a liquid that can change its rheological state when subjected to a magnetic
field. Usually, viscosity is the main objective of such changes; its characteristic may span
from values typical of water up to becoming almost solid. Since viscosity is targeted,
the main uses concentrate on phenomena wherein this property plays an important role.
Therefore, dynamic aspects are mainly considered, with the primary aim to variate the
overall viscous damping function to increase the dissipation at the highest level. For
instance, controlling viscosity may be essential for vehicle suspensions or other devices
dealing with the impact of a system on the ground. Having almost no damping would cause
the target structure to vibrate indefinitely, so a certain amount of dissipation capability
is necessary. However, it cannot exceed a certain threshold, otherwise, the time response
is dramatically affected, in turn determining the system to approach equilibrium in a
very long time, virtually infinite. In other words, having infinite damping is almost
equivalent, macroscopically, to have infinite local stiffness, as an additional constraint is
added. Additionally, dissipation capability depends on velocity, so the damper should be
tuned with its current value to attain the best performance.
The potential of such an incredible instrument is hampered by its construction. Usually,
a MRF is produced as an oil solution containing small metal particles. The magnetic-forced
orientation of such particles hinders the fluid movement. Since metal is heavy, the particles
tends to drop down, so that a continuous mixing shall be actuated even though the use
of some additives can limit the issue. The drawbacks of this necessity are evident since
it would require some external energy devoted to this operation which, in the case of a
transport drum, is sometimes generated by a helix constantly mindling the fluid. Luckily,
some applications are self-consistent, as the structures that enjoy the presence of the MRF are
themselves subjected to continuous oscillations. In the case of cars or bikes, this operation
is strictly connected to continuous hits with road irregularities; for this reason, it is not
surprising that many patents and several common implementations of magneto-rheological
fluids are for road vehicles.
Other major applications of MRF are related to seismic response attenuation, where
the need to maximize the energy dissipation is crucial for guaranteeing the device’s ef-
fectiveness and safeguarding the reference structure. In this case, the system may stand
for a long time, silent, without anything to do. However, it should be ready to use at
unpredictable moments. Therefore, its state should be preserved at each instant, and an
automatic monitoring system is essential. This fact enlarges the costs of implementing such
devices, even with the perspective of an exceptional response in danger.
This Special Issue presents two papers that deal with the application of MRF on
buildings. The first one [1] is an extensive review of many publications focusing on devices
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13, 5044. https://doi.org/10.3390/app13085044 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci