Experimental investigation and proposed correlations for temperaturedependent thermal conductivity enhancement of ethylene glycol based nanofluid containing ZnO nanoparticles

Abstract

Experimental study of effective thermal conductivity of ZnO/EG nanofluid is presented in this<br />research. The nanofluid was prepared by dispersing Zno nanoparticles in ethylene glycol using a<br />sonicator and adding surfactant. Ethylene glycol based nanofluid containing ZnO nanoparticle<br />with a nominal diameter of 18 nm at different solid volume fractions (very low to high) at<br />various temperatures was examined for the investigation. The thermal conductivity of nanofluids<br />is experimentally measured with THW method and it is found that the thermal conductivity of<br />nanofluids increase with the nanoparticle volume concentration and temperature. Also, based on<br />experimental values of thermal conductivity of nanofluid, three experimental models are<br />proposed to predict thermal conductivity of nanofluids. The proposed models show reasonably<br />excellent agreement with our experimental results.