A hybrid genetic–BP algorithm approach for thermal conductivity modeling of nanofluid containing silver nanoparticles coated with PVP

Since nanoparticles play a significant role in increasing the thermal conductivity of fluids, the present study aims to predict the thermal conductivity of silver nanofluid coated with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) by the combinational model of multilayer perceptron artificial neural network and genetic algorithm. For modeling, the results of experimental measurements have been used for thermal conductivity of nanofluid containing PVP-coated silver nanoparticle-based deionized water at 25–55 °C in volume fraction of 250 ppm, 500 ppm and 1000 ppm. Henceforth, genetic algorithm is applied to improve learning process in the artificial neural network. It is in this way that the masses were chosen for each neuron’s communications as well as their bias happens according to optimization performed by the genetic algorithm. To evaluate the accuracy of the model in predicting thermal conductivity of nanofluid, mean absolute percentage error, root mean square error, coefficient of determination ( R 2 ) and mean bias error have exerted indices which are 1.202, 0.345, 0.989 and − 0.016, respectively. The results of the indices and predictions, compared to the experimental results, show high accuracy and reliable combinational model of artificial neural network and genetic algorithm.