TY - GEN
T1 - Determining the effective thermal conductivity of a nanofluid using Brownian dynamics simulation
AU - Bhattacharya, P.
AU - Saha, S. K.
AU - Yadav, A.
AU - Phelan, Patrick
AU - Prasher, R. S.
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - A nanofluid is a fluid containing suspended solid particles, with sizes of the order of nanometers. Normally the fluid has a low thermal conductivity compared to the suspended particles. Therefore introduction of these particles into the fluid increases the effective thermal conductivity of the system. It is of interest to predict the effective thermal conductivity of such a nanofluid under different conditions like varying particle volume fraction, varying particle size, changing fluid conductivity or changing fluid viscosity, especially since only limited experimental data are available. Also, some controversy exists about the role of Brownian motion in enhancing the nanofluid's thermal conductivity. We have developed a novel technique to compute the effective thermal conductivity of a nanofluid using Brownian dynamics simulation, which has the advantage of being computationally less expensive than molecular dynamics. We obtain the contribution of the nanoparticles towards the effective thermal conductivity using the equilibrium Green-Kubo method. Then we combine that with the thermal conductivity of the base fluid to obtain the effective thermal conductivity of the nanofluid, and thus are able to show that the Brownian motion contributes greatly to the thermal conductivity.
AB - A nanofluid is a fluid containing suspended solid particles, with sizes of the order of nanometers. Normally the fluid has a low thermal conductivity compared to the suspended particles. Therefore introduction of these particles into the fluid increases the effective thermal conductivity of the system. It is of interest to predict the effective thermal conductivity of such a nanofluid under different conditions like varying particle volume fraction, varying particle size, changing fluid conductivity or changing fluid viscosity, especially since only limited experimental data are available. Also, some controversy exists about the role of Brownian motion in enhancing the nanofluid's thermal conductivity. We have developed a novel technique to compute the effective thermal conductivity of a nanofluid using Brownian dynamics simulation, which has the advantage of being computationally less expensive than molecular dynamics. We obtain the contribution of the nanoparticles towards the effective thermal conductivity using the equilibrium Green-Kubo method. Then we combine that with the thermal conductivity of the base fluid to obtain the effective thermal conductivity of the nanofluid, and thus are able to show that the Brownian motion contributes greatly to the thermal conductivity.
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U2 - 10.1115/ht2003-47280
DO - 10.1115/ht2003-47280
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:1842740893
SN - 0791836959
SN - 9780791836958
T3 - Proceedings of the ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference
SP - 777
EP - 783
BT - Proceedings of the 2003 ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference, Volume 3
PB - American Society of Mechanical Engineers
T2 - 2003 ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference (HT2003)
Y2 - 21 July 2003 through 23 July 2003
ER -