Open Access

ARTICLE

A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY AND RHEOLOGY PROPERTIES OF ALUMINA AND MULTI-WALLED CARBON NANOTUBE NANOFLUIDS

Zan Wu^a, Zhaozan Feng^b, Bengt Sundén^a,*, Lars Wadsö^c

a Department of Energy Sciences, Lund University, Lund, SE-22100, Sweden
b Department of Energy Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China
c Division of Building Materials, Lund University, Lund, SE-22100, Sweden

* Corresponding Author: Email:

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2014, 5, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.5098/hmt.5.18

Abstract

Thermal conductivity and rheology behavior of two aqueous nanofluids, i.e., alumina and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) nanofluids, were experimentally investigated and compared with previous analytical models. Information about the possible agglomeration size and interfacial thermal resistance in the nanofluids were obtained and partially validated. By incorporating the effects of interfacial thermal resistance, a revised model was found to accurately reproduce the experimental data based on the agglomeration size extracted from the rheology analysis. In addition, the thermal conductivity change of the alumina/water nanofluid with elapsed time was investigated. Thermal conductivity measurements were also conducted for alumina/water and MWCNT/water nanofluid mixtures.

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