Measuring Thermal Conductivity of Fluids Containing Oxide Nanoparticles

TLDR

Oxide nanofluids were produced and their thermal conductivities were measured by a transient hot‑wire method. The experiments show that oxide nanofluids with small amounts of nanoparticles exhibit substantially higher thermal conductivities than the base liquids, and while the Hamilton–Crosser model accurately predicts the behavior of Al₂O₃‑containing fluids, it fails for CuO, indicating that particle shape and size are dominant factors.

Abstract

Oxide nanofluids were produced and their thermal conductivities were measured by a transient hot-wire method. The experimental results show that these nanofluids, containing a small amount of nanoparticles, have substantially higher thermal conductivities than the same liquids without nanoparticles. Comparisons between experiments and the Hamilton and Crosser model show that the model can predict the thermal conductivity of nanofluids containing large agglomerated Al2O3 particles. However, the model appears to be inadequate for nanofluids containing CuO particles. This suggests that not only particle shape but size is considered to be dominant in enhancing the thermal conductivity of nanofluids.