2.3 Thermal Conductivity
Theoretical study on nanofluids containing Al2O3, CuO and Cu particles were investigated [18]. The
results showed 60% improvement in heat transfer is observed corresponding to the base fluid HE-200
oil/water, with 5% volume dispersion. Further investigations on CuO, Al2O3 suspension on
water/ethylene glycol [19] showed 20% improvement in heat transfer with 4% volume dispersion. Similar
results were observed in steady state parallel plate technique by Xuan and Li, where 12% enhancement in
effective thermal conductivity is observed. Further researches showed 20% [20] and enhancement by
various researchers [19-21]. Cu nano particles suspended with transformer oil and water was investigated
by Eastman et.al and results showed promising results. SiC nano particles of 26nm are suspended on
deionized water/ ethylene glycol (EG) was investigated using transient hot wire method by [22-24]. Fe
based nanofluid was investigated [25], by dispersing Fe nano particles of 10nm in ethylene glycol. The
results showed that Fe, SiC nanofluid is not promising compared to the base fluid even though Fe is a
good thermal conductive material. The many investigators reported that agglomeration of particles plays a
vital role in the study of thermal conductivity of the material. From the aforementioned discussion, we
find that the existing experimental and numerical data from different research communities vary
extensively, as shown in Table 2. In context to the above discussions, the international nanofluid property
benchmark exercise (INPBE) also justified the thermal conductivity of the nanofluids based on the
experimental and theoretical studies [26]. The major results reported are there is an enhancement of 5% to
10% of thermal conductivity of nanofluids based on the base fluid (water, PAO). Also it is reported that
there is no significant improvement in the thermal conductivity compared to the conventional base fluid,
which depends on particle size and base fluid thermal conductivity. From the above discussions, we
summarized results for thermal conductivity enhancement with different nanofluids as shown in
Appendix A.
2420 P.K. Nagarajan et al. / Energy Procedia 61 ( 2014 ) 2416 – 2434
2.4 Viscosity
Viscosity is another parameter under study for determining the characteristics of nanofluid. The SiO2
nanofluid was investigated [27] and reported that nanofluid viscosity depends on the volume fraction.
Another set of researchers [28] studied commercial engine coolants dispersed with alumina particles.
They found that the nanofluid prepared with calculated amount of oleic acid (surfactant) was tested to be
stable. While the pure base fluid displays Newtonian behaviour over the measured temperature, it
transforms to a non-Newtonian fluid with addition of a small amount of alumina nanoparticles. From the
above mentioned discussion, we come across that the existing data from different research groups vary
widely, as shown in Appendix B.