Experimental validation of enhancement in thermal conductivity of titania/ water nanofluid by the addition of silver nanoparticles

摘要

The paper presents the experimental investigation of thermal conductivity enhancement of a newly developed nanocompositefluid (TiO_2-Ag/water) and compares the enhancement with mono nanofluid (TiO_2/water). The experiments are carried out for 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 volumetric concentrations and at fluid temperatures 35, 40, 50 and 60 °C. The results show that the thermal conductivity enhancement of the nanocompositefluid is higher than the mono nanofluid. The maximum enhancement is 18.47% for 0.4 vol% at 60 °C relative to the TiO_2/water nanofluid. From the results, it is understood that 0.1 vol% of TiO_2-Ag/water has almost the same thermal conductivity as that of 0.4 vol% TiO_2/water nanofluid. Thus, for the same enhancement, a lower vol% of TiO_2-Ag nanocomposite particles is required as compared to the TiO_2 nanoparticle only in water. Based on the experimental data, regression analysis, thermal conductivity ratio models are developed for the two nanofluids and the best model is selected based on maximum R~2 values.