Thermal conductivity of fluids containing suspension of nanometer-sized particles

Nanofluids, which are fluids containing suspension of nanometer-sized particles, have been reported to possess substantially higher thermal conductivity than their respective base fluids. This thesis reports on an experimental study of the effect of base fluid, particle size, particle volume concentration, and sonicating technique on the thermal conductivity enhancement of nanofluids. Thermal conductivity measurements for several combinations of nanocrystalline materials and base fluids were conducted with the transient hotwire technique. Results show that the thermal conductivity enhancement of nanofluids increases with particle volume concentration, with higher thermal conductivity enhancement observed for ethylene glycol than deionized water base fluids. However, most of the enhancement observed can be explained based on classical Maxwell-Garnett effective medium theory. Although ethylene glycol containing gold nanoparticles produces significantly higher enhancement in thermal conductivity over those predicted by the Maxwell-Garnett theory, Fourier transform analysis indicates that the anomalous enhancement in thermal conductivity observed with the gold-ethylene glycol nanofluids is due to the presence of water.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Ma, Jack Jeinhao

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Gang Chen.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36248

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/36248