“Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy”: An Economic Analysis of the Attack on Gun Control

A relatively new way for utilizing the thermal performance of heat pipes is to use nanofluids as working fluids in the heat pipes. Heat pipes are effective heat transfer devices in which the nanofluid operates in the two phases, evaporation and condensation. The heat pipe transfers the heat supplied in e.g. a laptop, from the evaporator to condenser part. Nanofluids are mixtures consisting of nanoparticles (e.g. nano-sized silver particles) and a base fluid (e.g. water). The aim of this bachelor’s thesis has been to examine the effect of nanofluids on heat pipes on the subject of temperature parameters and thermal resistance in the heat pies, through findings in literature and an applied model. The study, based on literature and an applied model, found that higher particle conductivity and higher concentration of nanoparticles consequently decrease the thermal resistance in the heat pipes, resulting in an enhanced thermal performance of the heat pipes with nanofluids as working fluids. It is however concluded that difficulties in finding the optimal synthesis of nanofluids, the concentration level of nanoparticles and the filling ratio of nanofluids in heat pipes, set bounds to the commercial use of nanofluids in heat pipes. It is suggested that, in order to enhance the heat transfer performance of nanofluids in heat pipes, to conduct further research concerning e.g. synthesis of nanofluids and concentration level of nanoparticles in nanofluids

Forced boiling of nanofluids, effects of contact angle and surface wettability

This paper was presented at the 3rd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2011), which was held at the Makedonia Palace Hotel, Thessaloniki in Greece. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Thessaly, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute.Nanofluids are the suspension of ultra fine particles in a conventional base fluid which tremendously changes the heat transfer characteristics of the original fluid. In this paper the boiling characteristics of different nanofluids was studied numerically using a CFD approach. Dispersions of Al2O3, SiO2, and ZrO2 nanoparticles in water at different concentrations (0.1, 0.01 and 0.001% by volume) have been used. Effects of some noticeable parameters such as nanoparticle concentration and temperature profile on the critical heat flux (CHF) have been investigated. The results of CFD simulation based on two-phase models were compared with experimental data. Boiling curves and critical heat flux were measured for the base fluid and the nanofluids. Based on the simulation results, it was concluded that the using of the Zirconium oxide (0.001%) led to modest (up to 31%) increase in the CHF. The minimum enhancement belongs to the aluminum oxide (0.1%) which increases the critical heat flux up to 11%. According to the experimental results, despite of expectation, addition of the nanoparticles causes decreasing the boiling heat transfer coefficient. This reduction is related to the changing of the surface characteristic causing by depositing the nanoparticles. In the Al2O3/water and SiO2/water nanofluids, the surface contact angle increases with increase in the nanoparticle volume fraction, so the CHF decreases

Effect of nanomaterial properties on thermal conductivity of heat transfer fluids and nanomaterial suspension

This paper was presented at the 4th Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2014), which was held at University College, London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute, ASME Press, LCN London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL University College London, UCL Engineering, the International NanoScience Community, www.nanopaprika.eu.Energy has been rated as the single most important issue facing humanity in the current as well as next 50 years. Securing clean energy has become the top priority of most developed countries. Considering the rapid increase in energy demand worldwide, intensifying the heat transfer process and reducing energy loss due to ineffective use have become an increasingly important task. Fundamentally, energy conversion and transportation occur at atomic or molecular levels, Nanoscience and nanotechnology are expected to play a significant role in revitalizing the traditional energy industries and stimulating the emerging renewable energy industries. Nanofluid is a modern engineering heat transfer fluid with superior potential for enhancing the heat transfer performance of conventional fluids such as water, ethylene glycol and oils. It is consisting of solid nanoparticles with sizes typically of 1–100 nm suspended in base fluids. Many attempts have been made to investigate its important thermal properties, i.e. thermal conductivity; however, no definitive agreements and idea have emerged about this property. This article reports the effect of different nanomaterial on the thermal conductivity enhancement of nanofluids experimentally. TiO2, Fe3O4 and Al2O3 nanoparticles dispersed in water and ethylene glycol with volume concentration of 1 – 7.5 vol. % is used in the present study. A transient hot-wire apparatus (KD2 pro) is used for measuring the thermal conductivity of nanofluids. The results show that all the heat transfer fluids show an increase in thermal conductivity with the addition of nanoparticles in it. The measured thermal conductivity of nanofluids increased as the particle concentrations increased and are higher than the values of the base liquids. This confirms the effect of volume concentration of nanoparticles on the thermal conductivity enhancement

Turbulent convective heat transfer and pressure drop of dilute CuO (copper oxide) - water nanofluid Inside a circular tube

This paper was presented at the 3rd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2011), which was held at the Makedonia Palace Hotel, Thessaloniki in Greece. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Thessaly, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute.Turbulent forced convective heat transfer and pressure drop of 0.01 vol.% CuO-water nanofluid was assessed experimentally. The nanofluids were made flow into a heated horizontal tube under uniform constant heat flux within Reynolds number range of 11,500 to 32,000. The first objective is to know how close traditional correlation/formula for, both, heat transfer and pressure drop can predict nanofluid’s heat transfer and pressure drop. The second is to know how nanofluid’s convective heat transfer and pressure drop are compared to those of its base fluid; in this case water. The results showed that the abovementioned characteristics of the nanofluid can be predicted by the traditional correlation available. It is also found that the nanofluid’s Nusselt number and friction factor, which represent the heat transfer rate and pressure drop, respectively, are close to those of water. Hence, there is no anomaly due to the dispersed nanoparticles within the water.KACST (King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology

Performance analysis of a direct-absorption parabolic trough solar collector

A parabolic trough solar collector is a dominant technology for high-temperature industrial applications, but efficient use of a conventional surface-based parabolic trough solar collector (SBPTSC) is limited by its high radiation loss due to the high surface temperature. Recently, direct-absorption parabolic trough solar collector (DAPTSC) using nanofluids has been proposed, and its thermal efficiency has been reported to be 5-10$\%$ higher than the conventional SBPTSC for inlet temperature up to 250$^\circ$C. However, the inner tubes of the receivers of the existing DAPTSCs are all transparent, so the sun rays entering the inner tube can only travel once through the nanofluids. As a result, the optical path length for the sun rays is limited by the inner tube size, which in turn requires high value of the absorption coefficient of nanofluids. Due to the approximately linear relation between the absorption coefficient and the particle concentration, higher absorption coefficient is likely to cause particle agglomeration, leading to detrimental effects on maintaining stable collector performance. In the current study, the transparent DAPTSC is improved by applying a reflective coating on the upper half of the inner tube outer surface, such that the optical path length is doubled compared to the transparent DAPTSC; thus, the absorption coefficient of the nanofluids can be reduced accordingly. The coated DAPTSC is found to have obvious advantage compared to the transparent DAPTSC at absorption coefficient below 0.5 cm$^{-1}$ for a receiver with inner tube diameter of 7 cm. In addition, performance of the transparent DAPTSC, the coated DAPTSC and the SBPTSC with black chrome coating have been compared to explore their advantageous operation conditions, such as inner tube diameter, flow rate, and inlet temperature, with or without a glass envelope for vacuum evacuation.Comment: 6 figure

Natural convection in square enclosures differentially heated at sides using alumina-water nanofluids with temperature-dependent physical properties

Laminar natural convection of Al2O3 + H2O nanofluids inside square cavities differentially heated at sides is studied numerically. A computational code based on the SIMPLE-C algorithm is used for the solution of the system of the mass, momentum and energy transfer governing equations. Assuming that the nanofluid behaves like a single-phase fluid, these equations are the same as those valid for a pure fluid, provided that the thermophysical properties appearing in them are the nanofluid effective properties. The thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of the nanofluid are calculated by means of a couple of empirical equations based on a wide variety of experimental data reported in the literature. The other effective properties are evaluated by the conventional mixing theory. Simulations are performed for different values of the nanoparticle volume fraction in the range 0-0.06, the diameter of the suspended nanoparticles in the range 25-100 nm, the temperature of the cooled sidewall in the range 293-313 K, the temperature of the heated sidewall in the range 298-343 K, and the Rayleigh number of the base fluid in the range 103-107. All computations are executed in the hypothesis of temperature-dependent effective properties. The main result obtained is the existence of an optimal particle loading for maximum heat transfer, that is found to increase as the size of the suspended nanoparticles is decreased, and the nanofluid average temperature is increased

Experimental and numerical investigation on forced convection in circular tubes with nanofluids

This paper was presented at the 4th Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2014), which was held at University College, London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute, ASME Press, LCN London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL University College London, UCL Engineering, the International NanoScience Community, www.nanopaprika.eu.In this paper an experimental and numerical study to investigate the convective heat transfer characteristics of fully developed turbulent flow of a water–Al2O3 nanofluid in a circular tube is presented. The numerical simulations are accomplished on the experimental test section configuration. In the analysis, the fluid flow and the thermal field are assumed axial-symmetric, two-dimensional and steady state. The single-phase model is employed to model the nanofluid mixture and k-ε model is used to describe the turbulent fluid flow. Experimental and numerical results are carried out for different volumetric flow rates and nanoparticles concentration values. Heat transfer convective coefficients as a function of flow rates and Reynolds numbers are presented. The results indicate that the heat transfer coefficients increase for all nanofluids concentrations compared to pure water at increasing volumetric flow rate. Heat transfer coefficient increases are observed at assigned volumetric flow rate for nanofluid mixture with higher concentrations whereas Nusselt numbers present lower values than the ones for pure water

Structure – Property relationships for nanofluids

This paper was presented at the 3rd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2011), which was held at the Makedonia Palace Hotel, Thessaloniki in Greece. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Thessaly, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute.Nanofluids refer to dilute liquid suspensions of nanoparticles in commonly used heat transfer liquids. They triggered much excitement since mid 1990s mainly owing to the claims of anomalous enhancement of thermal conductivity even at very low nanoparticle concentrations. There have been numerous attempts to interpret the mechanism(s) that drive the displayed enhancement. A long debate within the research community supported by experimental and theoretical evidence has highlighted the nanoparticle structuring as the dominant underlying mechanism. On the other hand the viscosity increase as a result of nanoparticle structuring raises concerns about their suitability for certain applications. This paper mainly discusses the structure – property relationship for nanofluids in microscopically static conditions

Ultrasonic preparation, stability and thermal conductivity of a capped copper - methanol nanofluid

This paper describes a two-step method to prepare novel copper-methanol nanofluids capped with a short chain molecule, (3-Aminopropyl)trimethoxysilane (APTMS). Two commercial nanopowders were dispersed at various powers using a 20 kHz ultrasonic probe into solutions of methanol and the capping agent. Ultrasonic energy input was measured by calorimetry with z-average diameters, intensity and number size distributions recorded by a dynamic light scattering technique. The stability of the dispersion was monitored visually, and quantified by recording the zeta potential. Dispersions of the bare powder were used as a control. Absorption spectroscopy was used to confirm the presence of the capping agent. The thermal conductivities of 0 to 10% wt./vol. (1.1% vol.) dispersions of the capped copper-methanol nanofluid were determined using a C-Therm analyzer. Optimum ultrasonic de-agglomeration conditions gave dispersions with a z-average particle size of &lt;200 nm and a PdI of &lt;0.2. The capped particles showed good stability; up to six months in some instances, and an average zeta potential of +38 mV was recorded. The thermal conductivity of the nanofluid increased with concentration, and an enhancement of 9% over the base fluid was found at 10% wt./vol. (1.1% vol.). This innovative work has demonstrated the ultrasonic preparation and stability of copper nanoparticles protected with APTMS; a short chain molecule which binds to copper and prevents oxidation. The protected particles can enhance the thermal conductivity of methanol with no interference from the capping ligand.</p