Thermal conductivity modeling of water containing metal oxide nanoparticles

The nano particles have demonstrated great potential to improve the heat transfer characteristics of heat transfer fluids.Possible parameters responsible for this increase were studied. The heat transfer profile in the nanolayer region was combined with other parameters such as volume fraction, particle radius thermal conductivity of the fluid, particle and nanolayer, to formulate a thermal conductivity model. Results predicting the thermal conductivity of nanofluids using the model were compared with experimental results as well as studies by other researchers. The comparison of the results obtained for the Cu O/water and Ti O2/water nanofluids studied shows that the correlation proposed is in closest proximity in predicting the experimental results for the thermal conductivity of a nanofluid. Also, a parametric study was performed to understand how a number of factors affect the thermal conductivity of nanofluids using the developed correlation.