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On the temperature effect of nanofluid thermal conductivity by molecular dynamics simulation

WENZHENG CUI1,2, ZHAOJIE SHEN1,* , JIANGUO YANG1, SHAOHUA WU2

Affiliation

  1. School of Automotive Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Weihai, China
  2. School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

Abstract

Nanofluids are a new class of nanotechnology based heat transfer fluids that possess extraordinarily high thermal conductivity and flow stability. However, the deep mechanism for the strengthened conduction heat transfer in nanofluids has not yet been fully disclosed. This study investigated the thermal conductivities of water based nanofluids by molecular dynamics simulations and examined possible reasons for the thermal conductivity enhancement from microscopic view. By establishing water based nanofluids simulation models with copper nanoparticles installed, the simulations were performed under different temperature conditions. It was found that the thermal conductivity is a monoton ic increasing function of thermodynamic temperature. By adding 1nm copper nanoparticle, the thermal conductivity of nanofluids is increased by more than 30%. By tracking the evolution of simulation system, it was concluded that multiple factors may be resp onsible for the conduction heat transfer enhancement i n nanofluids. Fast heat transferring through the water molecules absorbed to the nanoparticles surface, as well as micro convection effect caused by the intense motions of nanoparticles are the most lik ely mechanisms..

Keywords

Nanofluids, Thermal conductivity, Molecular Dynamics simulation, Enhanced heat transfer, Mechanism.

Citation

WENZHENG CUI, ZHAOJIE SHEN, JIANGUO YANG, SHAOHUA WU, On the temperature effect of nanofluid thermal conductivity by molecular dynamics simulation, Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials - Rapid Communications, 9, 1-2, January-February 2015, pp.146-151 (2015).

Submitted at: Dec. 2, 2014

Accepted at: Jan. 21, 2015