Analyzing nanofluids suspension using the porous media interface heat transfer model

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Abstract

The impressive heat transfer enhancement revealed experimentally in nanofluid suspensions by Eastman et al. (2001), Lee et al. (1999), and Choi et al. (2001) conflicts apparently with Maxwell’s (1891) classical theory of estimating the effective thermal conductivity of suspensions, including higher-order corrections and other spherical particle geometries developed by Hamilton and Crosser (1962), Jeffrey (1973), Davis (1986), Lu and Lin (1996), and Bonnecaze and Brady (1990, 1991). Further attempts for independent confirmation of the experimental results showed conflicting outcomes with some experiments such as Das et al. (2003) and Li and Peterson (2006) confirming at least partially the results presented by Eastman et al. (2001), Lee et al. (1999), and Choi et al. (2001), while others such as Buongiorno and Venerus (2010) and Buongiorno et al. (2009) show in contrast results that are in agreement with Maxwell’s (1891) effective medium theory. All these experiments were performed by using the transient hot wire (THW) experimental method. On the other hand, most experimental results that used optical methods, such as the optical beam deflection (Putnam et al., 2006), all-optical thermal-lensing method (Rusconi et al., 2006), and forced Rayleigh scattering (Venerus et al., 2006), did not reveal any thermal conductivity enhancement beyond what is predicted by the effective medium theory. A variety of possible reasons for the excessive values of the effective thermal conductivity obtained in some experiments have been investigated, but only few succeeded to show a viable explanation. Jang and Choi (2004) and Prasher et al. (2005) show that convection due to Brownian motion may explain the enhancement of the effective thermal conductivity. However, if indeed this is the case, it is difficult to explain why this enhancement of the effective thermal conductivity is selective and is not obtained in all nanofluid experiments. Alternatively, Vadasz et al. (2005) showed that hyperbolic heat conduction also provides a viable explanation for the latter, although their further research and comparison to later published experimental data presented by Vadasz and Govender (2010) lead them to discard this possibility.

Original language English (US) Handbook of Porous Media, Third Edition CRC Press 513-532 20 9781439885574 9781439885543 https://doi.org/10.1201/b18614 Published - Jan 1 2015

ASJC Scopus subject areas

• Chemistry(all)
• Chemical Engineering(all)
• Engineering(all)
• Materials Science(all)