Investigation of Thermal Conductivity and Viscosity of Carbon Nanotubes-ethylene Glycol Nanofluids
Narendra Singha, Gaurav Chandb and S. Kanagarajc
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781 039, India.
an.singh@iitg.ernet.in
bg.chand@iitg.ernet.in
ckanagaraj@iitg.ernet.in
ABSTRACT
Conventional fluids used for heat transfer applications in the automobiles limit the performance enhancement and compactness of the heat exchangers. These problems can be overcome by using the technology of Nanofluids. The objective of this work is to prepare nanofluids and to study their dynamic viscosity and thermal conductivity. The chemically treated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were added with Ethylene Glycol (EG) and sonicated using a bath-sonicator to have a homogeneous dispersion of CNTs in EG. In this study, the nanofluids were prepared with different concentrations of CNTs varying from 0.12 to 0.4 wt.%. The dynamic viscosity of nanofluids was measured using a Rheometer over the temperature range of 25°C to 60°C. It was observed that the viscosity of nanofluids decreases with an increase of temperature and increases with CNT concentration. The nanofluid follows the characteristics behaviour of Newtonian fluid. A linear rise in thermal conductivity of ethylene glycol was observed with an increase of CNT concentration. It is concluded that EG-CNT nanofluids are promising to meet the challenges required by the automobile systems.
Keywords: Nanofluids, Automobile, Carbon nanotubes, Ethylene glycol, Thermal conductivity, Dynamic viscosity.
Full Text (PDF)
|
