Theoretical modelling of nanofluids for heat transfer

摘要

There have been numerous claims concerning the remarkable heat transfer properties of nanofluids. This has driven, and still does, a great deal of research into finding the fluid composition which removes the greatest amount of heat. A popular model for nanofluids was presented by Buongiorno and this model has been used by many authors for numerical and theoretical studies to demonstrate the improvement in heat transfer. We will show that in general this model in fact predicts a decrease in heat transfer with increasing solid volume fraction. This result is in line with the recent benchmark study. Finally, we discuss briefly how nanofluids may lead to improvements in thermal solar collectors.