Critical Invalidation of Temperature Dependence of Nanofluid Thermal Conductivity Enhancement

Of interest is the accurate measurement of the enhanced thermal conductivity of certain nanofluids free from the impact of natural convection. Owing to its simplicity, wide range of applicability and short response time, the transient hot-wire method (THWM) is frequently used to measure the thermal conductivity of fluids. In order to gain a sufficiently high accuracy, special care should be taken to assure that each measurement is not affected by initial heat supply delay, natural convection, and signal noise. In this study, it was found that there is a temperature limit when using THWM due to the incipience of natural convection. The results imply that the temperature-dependence of the thermal conductivity enhancement observed by other researchers might be misleading when ignoring the impact of natural convection; hence, it could not be used as supporting evidence of the effectiveness of micromixing due to Brownian motion. Thus, it is recommended that researchers report how they keep the impact of the natural convection negligible and check the integrity of their measurements in the future researches

Role of micropillar arrays in cell rolling dynamics

In this study, we present a role of arrayed micropillar structures in cell rolling dynamics. Cell rolling on a ligand coated surface as a means of cell separation was demonstrated using a micropillar-integrated microfluidic channel. This approach allows the separation of cells according to characteristic surface properties, regardless of cell size. In these experiments, different moving trajectories of the cells between a ligand-coated micropost structure and a 1% BSA coated micropost structure were observed using sequential images. Based on the analysis of the angle of travel of cells in the trajectory, the average angles of travel on the ligand-coated microposts were 1.5 degrees and -3.1 degrees on a 1% BSA-coated micropost structure. The overall force equivalent applied to a cell can be analyzed to predict the cell rolling dynamics when a cell is detached. These results show that it will be possible to design chip geometry for delicate operations and to separate target cells. Furthermore, we believe that these control techniques based on a ligand coated micropillar surface can be used for enhancing cell rolling-based separation in a faster and more continuous manner.ope

Round-robin test on thermal conductivity measurement of ZnO nanofluids and comparison of experimental results with theoretical bounds

Ethylene glycol (EG)-based zinc oxide (ZnO) nanofluids containing no surfactant have been manufactured by one-step pulsed wire evaporation (PWE) method. Round-robin tests on thermal conductivity measurements of three samples of EG-based ZnO nanofluids have been conducted by five participating labs, four using accurate measurement apparatuses developed in house and one using a commercial device. The results have been compared with several theoretical bounds on the effective thermal conductivity of heterogeneous systems. This study convincingly demonstrates that the large enhancements in the thermal conductivities of EG-based ZnO nanofluids tested are beyond the lower and upper bounds calculated using the models of the Maxwell and Nan et al. with and without the interfacial thermal resistance

Comparison of Factorial and Latin Hypercube Sampling Designs for Meta-Models of Building Heating and Cooling Loads

Interest in research analyzing and predicting energy loads and consumption in the early stages of building design using meta-models has constantly increased in recent years. Generally, it requires many simulated or measured results to build meta-models, which significantly affects their accuracy. In this study, Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) is proposed as an alternative to Fractional Factor Design (FFD), since it can improve the accuracy while including the nonlinear effect of design parameters with a smaller size of data. Building energy loads of an office floor with ten design parameters were selected as the meta-models’ objectives, and were developed using the two sampling methods. The accuracy of predicting the heating/cooling loads of the meta-models for alternative floor designs was compared. For the considered ranges of design parameters, window insulation (WDI) and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) were found to have nonlinear characteristics on cooling and heating loads. LHS showed better prediction accuracy compared to FFD, since LHS considers the nonlinear impacts for a given number of treatments. It is always a good idea to use LHS over FFD for a given number of treatments, since the existence of nonlinearity in the relation is not pre-existing information

Effects of the Corona Pandemic on Indoor Fine Dust in Urban Schools

Corona pandemic restricted industrial activity of the country, influenced social activities of people, and changed students' school programs. PM10 and PM2.5 measured in National Air Quality Monitoring Systems were reduced from 36.1 μg/m3 to 34.5 μg/m3, and from 20.3 μg/m3 to 18.5 μg/m3, respectively. In particular, obvious decrease of indoor PM2.5 with high dependency on outdoor air quality was estimated. As a result of precise field tests in 179 classrooms of 53 schools, indoor PM2.5 showed a low average, 23 μg/m3, and PM10 also was lower 33 μg/m3 than before and after the pandemic (51 μg/m3 and 59 μg/m3 respectively). Due to a variety of class work, limited attendance, air purifier operation and frequent window opening, it was not easy to drive a consistent impact of the Corona pandemic at the indoor PM level. Consequently, the indoor and outdoor airborne fine dust concentrations became more similar than normal conditions, and indoor emission amount of PM10 in particular decreased

Round-robin test on thermal conductivity measurement of ZnO nanofluids and comparison of experimental results with theoretical bounds

Abstract Ethylene glycol (EG)-based zinc oxide (ZnO) nanofluids containing no surfactant have been manufactured by one-step pulsed wire evaporation (PWE) method. Round-robin tests on thermal conductivity measurements of three samples of EG-based ZnO nanofluids have been conducted by five participating labs, four using accurate measurement apparatuses developed in house and one using a commercial device. The results have been compared with several theoretical bounds on the effective thermal conductivity of heterogeneous systems. This study convincingly demonstrates that the large enhancements in the thermal conductivities of EG-based ZnO nanofluids tested are beyond the lower and upper bounds calculated using the models of the Maxwell and Nan et al. with and without the interfacial thermal resistance.</p