A Study on Uncertainties in Estimations of Thermal Conductivity of Alumina Nanofluids

An innovative way of improving the thermal conductivities of fluids is to suspend small solid particles in the fluids. Various types of powders such as metallic, non-metallic and polymeric particles can be added into fluids to form slurries. The thermal conductivities of fluids with suspended particles are expected to be higher than that of common fluids. Application of nanoparticles provides an effective way of improving heat transfer characteristics of fluids. By suspending nanophase particles in heating or cooling fluids, the heat transfer performance of the fluid can be significantly improved. Moreover, the thermal conductivity of nanofluid is strongly dependent on the nanoparticle volume fraction. So far it has been an unsolved problem to develop a sophisticated theory to predict thermal conductivity of nanofluids, although there are some semi empirical correlations to calculate the apparent conductivity of two-phase mixture. In this article few correlations were considered and differences were noted between different theories. In conclusion, a lot of uncertainties in determining thermal conductivity were noticed.

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