CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO NANOFLUIDS

The chapter gives a brief introduction about nanofluids in general and its initial
development to its present day use as cooling medium. Special emphasis is given to
the enhanced properties caused by the addition of nanoparticles and the main
motivation to carry out an extensive research in the field of heat transfer
augmentation using nanofluids. Finally, the thesis layout is also presented here.

A wide variety of industrial processes involve the transfer of heat energy.

Throughout any industrial facility, heat must be added, removed, or moved from one
process stream to another and it has become a major task for industrial necessity.
These processes provide a source for energy recovery and process fluid
heating/cooling.

The enhancement of heating or cooling in an industrial process may create a

saving in energy, reduce process time, raise thermal rating and lengthen the working
life of equipment. Some processes are even affected qualitatively by the action of
enhanced heat transfer. The development of high performance thermal systems for
heat transfer enhancement has become popular nowadays. A number of works have
been performed to gain an understanding of the heat transfer performance for their
practical applications to heat transfer enhancement. Thus, the advent of high heat
flow processes has created significant demand for new technologies to enhance heat
transfer.

There are several methods to improve the heat transfer efficiency. Some
methods are utilization of extended surfaces, application of vibration to the heat
transfer surfaces, and usage of micro channels. Heat transfer efficiency can also be
improved by increasing the thermal conductivity of the working fluid. Commonly
used heat transfer fluids such as water, ethylene glycol, and engine oil have relatively
low thermal conductivities, when compared to the thermal conductivity of solids.

High thermal conductivity of solids can be used to increase the thermal

conductivity of a fluid by adding small solid particles to that fluid. The feasibility of
the usage of such suspensions of solid particles with sizes of the order of millimeters

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or micrometers was previously investigated by several researchers and the following

significant drawbacks were observed (Das et al. (2006)).

 The particles settle rapidly, forming a layer on the surface and reducing the
heat transfer capacity of the fluid.
 If the circulation rate of the fluid is increased, sedimentation is reduced, but
the erosion of the heat transfer devices, pipelines, etc., increases rapidly.
 The large size of the particles tends to clog the flow channels, particularly if
the cooling channels are narrow.
 The pressure drop in the fluid increases considerably.
 Finally, conductivity enhancement based on particle concentration is achieved
(i.e., the greater the particle volume fraction is, the greater the enhancement—
and greater the problems, as indicated above).

Thus, the route of suspending particles in liquid was a well-known but rejected
option for heat transfer applications.

However, the emergence of modern materials technology provided the

opportunity to produce nanometer-sized particles which are quite different from the
parent material in mechanical, thermal, electrical and optical properties.

1.1 DEVELOPMENT OF NANOFLUIDS

Heat transfer properties of nanofluids were first reported by Choi (1995) of

the Argonne National Laboratory, United States. It has been demonstrated in Das et
al. (2006), Wang and Majumdar (2007), Cheng et al. (2008), Cheng (2009), Cheng
and Liu (2013) that nanofluids have significantly better heat transfer characteristics
than the base fluids. The following key features of nanofluids have been reported in
the literature:

 Higher thermal conductivities compared to conventional fluids,

 Effective thermal conductivity is nonlinearly temperature dependent,
 Enhanced heat transfer in single-phase flow,
 Enhanced nucleate pool boiling, and
 Yield higher critical heat fluxes (CHFs) under pool boiling conditions.

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But, in general, research on heat transfer performance, heat transfer enhancement

mechanisms, and nanofluid applications is still in its preliminary stage.

Nanofluids have been considered for applications as advanced heat transfer

fluids for almost two decades. However, due to the wide variety and the complexity of
the nanofluid systems, no agreement has been achieved on the magnitude of
potential benefits of using nanofluids for heat transfer applications. Compared to
conventional solid–liquid suspensions for heat transfer intensifications, nanofluids
having properly dispersed nanoparticles possess the following advantages:

 High specific surface area and therefore more heat transfer surface between
particles and fluids.
 High dispersion stability with predominant Brownian motion of particles.
 Reduced pumping power as compared to pure liquid to achieve equivalent
heat transfer intensification.
 Reduced particle clogging as compared to conventional slurries, thus
promoting system miniaturization.
 Adjustable properties, including thermal conductivity and surface wettability,
by varying particle concentrations to suit different applications.

1.2 MOTIVATION

Nanofluids:

The use of nanofluids is promising in several aspects of thermal physics. A

large number of engineering applications may be benefitted from the better
understanding of the enhancement of thermal conductivity of nanofluids. As an
example, ionic liquids which are salts being liquid at room temperature, do not have
high thermal conductivity. This could be improved by addition of nanoparticles with
the liquid and it would be better suited for heat transfer applications such as in
absorption refrigeration (Sen and Paolucci (2006)) or cooling circuits.

Liquid cooling with high thermal conductivity fluids would also address many
other heat dissipation problems. For example, micro-electro-mechanical systems
generate huge amount of heat during operation and require high performance
coolants to mitigate the large heat flux. Such a system requires precise temperature
control. A higher conductive fluid would also allow for more efficient heat transfer

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control (Escher et al. (2011), Nguyen et al. (2007a) and, Saidur et al. (2011)). There
are also many everyday applications like automotive industry, in which nanofluids
could be suitable option. The enhancement of thermal conductivity is observed high
in ethylene glycol based nanofluids (Das et al. (2007)) and it also suggests that this
common antifreeze could have better performance simply with a nanoparticle
suspension.

Pipe flow with constant heat flux:

Heat transfer from solid walls to flowing fluids is a topic of extreme scientific
interest as well as of immense practical importance. Experimental methods aimed
for determining the heat transfer and flow characteristics are both costly as well as
time consuming. Nonetheless, the International Nanofluid Property Benchmark
Exercise (INPBE) is working on the determination of the thermal conductivity of
nanofluids colloids using a variety of experimental methods. Pipe flow with constant
flux boundary condition is extensively studied and well verified for a large number of
fluids over a wide range of flow velocities. Hence validation of numerical results with
experimental results and correlations is possible for a number of properties. Since
nanofluids are a mixture of two substances – the base fluid and the nanoparticle,
hence single phase and mixture models has been used to simulate the flow.

1.3 PROJECT SCOPE

The basic aim of the project is to understand the flow physics and heat
transfer characteristics of nanofluids in different types of pipe geometries – square
and circular cross sections. It can be convincingly stated that the use of
nanorefrigerant is a realistic aim for enhancing the heat transfer in air conditioning
units.

1.4 LAYOUT OF THESIS

In this report, the distribution of chapters is as follows:

Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to nanofluids, the motivation for the studying of
nanofluids and the scope of this project.

Chapter 2 deals with the literature review for understanding the characteristics of
nanofluids and some applications of nanofluids.

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Chapter 3 provides the solution methodology used in this work.

Chapter 4 provides the results obtained in the simulation of Al 2O3-water and Al2O3-
ethylene glycol nanofluids in square and circular cross section tubes.

Chapter 5 provides the results obtained in the simulation of Al 2O3-R134a

nanorefrigerant in a 180 return bend of circular and elliptical cross section tubes.

Chapter 6 provides the conclusions of the present study and certain ideas which
might be explored in the future are also presented.