Role of Brownian Motion Hydrodynamics on Nanofluid Thermal Conductivity Page: 3 of 13
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In the last decade, significant research effort was committed to thermal transport
properties of colloidal suspensions of nanosized solid particles (nanofluids). [1]
Experiments demonstrated that thermal conductivity increases with increasing volume
fraction of nanoparticles are dramatically more significant than one would predict from
the effective medium theory of a composite material comprised of well-dispersed
particles. [2, 3, 4]
A number of possible factors responsible for this behavior were proposed [5, 6, 7,
8] with a consensus yet to emerge. [9] In particular, several authors [6, 7, 8] argued that
large thermal conductivity increases are due to hydrodynamic effects of Brownian motion
of nanoparticles. The argument first pointed to the well-known continuum hydrodynamic
solution of the problem of a sphere moving at constant velocity in fluid. This solution is
characterized by a long range velocity field, V(r), that decays approximately as the
inverse of the distance from the particle center, V(r) ~ 1/r. The ability of large volumes
of fluid dragged by nanoparticles to carry substantial amounts of heat was credited to be
responsible for large thermal conductivity increases of nanofluids.
In this paper we will discuss a kinetic theory based argument suggesting that the
Brownian motion contribution to the thermal conductivity of nanofluid is very small and
can not be responsible for extraordinary thermal transport properties of nanofluids. We
will support our argument with the results of molecular dynamics simulations of a model
nanofluid. These results are in good agreement with the predictions of the effective
medium theory on composites with well-dispersed particles, as well as with the result of
recent thermal transport measurements on nanofluids with well-dispersed metal
nanoparticles. [10]2
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W Evans, J Fish, P Keblinski. Role of Brownian Motion Hydrodynamics on Nanofluid Thermal Conductivity, article, November 14, 2005; Niskayuna, NY. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc876954/m1/3/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.