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The role of interfacial nanolayer in the enhanced thermal conductivity of carbon nanotube-based nanofluids

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Abstract

Nanofluid, a new class of solid/liquid mixtures, provided theoretical challenges because the measured effective thermal conductivity containing a few loadings of nanoparticle (<5 vol%) showed greater enhancement than traditional models predicted. The solid-like nanolayer around the nanoparticle acts as a thermal bridge between the particle and the base fluid, so is a key mechanism to enhance heat transfer of nanofluid. Based on the two-dimension Fourier’s law in the cylindrical coordinates, we deduced an expression for calculating the effective thermal conductivity of carbon nanotube-based nanofluid considering the interfacial nanolayer, as well as an empirical shape factor. The theoretical predictions on the enhanced thermal conductivity agree quite well with the available experimental data.

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Abbreviations

T :

Temperature

k :

Thermal conductivity

r :

Radial distance from the center of the nanoparticle

t :

Interfacial nanolayer thickness

q :

Heat flux

e(u):

Eccentricity of an ellipsoidal particle

k c11 :

Transverse equivalent thermal conductivity of the CNT

k c33 :

Longitudinal equivalent thermal conductivity of the CNT

M k :

Kaptiza radius

R k :

CNT-liquid interface thermal resistance

n :

Empirical shape factor

Ψ :

Sphericity

g :

Empirical parameter

E :

Field intensity

a, b, c :

Semi-axes of an ellipsoidal particle

x, y, z :

x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis

nf:

Nanofluid

bf:

Base fluid

p:

Nanoparticle

pe:

Equivalent nanoparticle

e:

Equivalent particle volume fraction

l:

Interfacial nanolayer

α :

Ratio of the thermal conductivities of the base fluid to the nanoparticle (k bf/k p)

β :

Ratio of the interfacial nanolayer thickness to the nanoparticle radius (t/b)

φ :

Nanoparticle volume fraction

θ :

Azimuthal angle

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support of the Doctoral Fund of the Ministry of Education of China (No. 20110002110088) and the Science Fund for Creative Research Groups (No. 51321002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education, Department of Thermal Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Haifeng Jiang, Qianghui Xu, Chao Huang & Lin Shi

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  1. Haifeng Jiang
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Correspondence to Lin Shi.

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Jiang, H., Xu, Q., Huang, C. et al. The role of interfacial nanolayer in the enhanced thermal conductivity of carbon nanotube-based nanofluids. Appl. Phys. A 118, 197–205 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-014-8902-5

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