Computational study of unsteady couple stress magnetic nanofluid flow from a stretching sheet with ohmic dissipation

To provide a deeper insight of the transport phenomena inherent to the manufacturing of magnetic nano-polymer materials, in the present work a mathematical model is developed for time-dependent hydromagnetic rheological nanopolymer boundary layer flow and heat transfer over a stretching sheet in the presence of a transverse static magnetic field. Joule heating (Ohmic dissipation) and viscous heating effects are included since these phenomena arise frequently in magnetic materials processing. Stokes’ couple stress model is deployed to simulate non-Newtonian micro-structural characteristics. The Tiwari-Das nanoscale model is adopted which permits different nano-particles to be simulated (in this article both copper-water and aluminium oxide-water nanofluids are considered). Similarity transformations are utilized to convert the governing partial differential conservation equations into a system of coupled, nonlinear ordinary differential equations with appropriate wall and free stream boundary conditions. The shooting technique is used to solve the reduced nonlinear coupled ordinary differential boundary value problem via MATLAB symbolic software. Validation with published results from the literature is included for the special cases of non-dissipative and Newtonian nanofluid flows. Fluid velocity and temperature profiles for both Copper and Aluminium Oxide (Al2O3) nanofluids are observed to be enhanced with greater non-Newtonian couple stress parameter and magnetic parameter whereas the opposite trend is computed with greater values of unsteadiness parameter. The boundary layer flow is accelerated with increasing buoyancy parameter, elastic sheet stretching parameter and convection parameter. Temperatures are generally increased with greater couple stress rheological parameter and are consistently higher for the Aluminium oxide nanoparticle case. Temperatures are also boosted with magnetic parameter and exhibit an overshoot near the wall when magnetic parameter exceeds unity (magnetic force exceeds viscous force). A decrease in temperatures is induced with increasing sheet stretching parameter. Increasing Eckert number elevates temperatures considerably. With greater nanoparticle volume fraction both skin friction and Nusselt number are elevated and copper nano-particles achieve higher magnitudes than aluminium oxide

Preparation and thermal conductivity of CuO nanofluid via a wet chemical method

In this article, a wet chemical method was developed to prepare stable CuO nanofluids. The influences of synthesis parameters, such as kinds and amounts of copper salts, reaction time, were studied. The thermal conductivities of CuO nanofluids were also investigated. The results showed that different copper salts resulted in different particle morphology. The concentration of copper acetate and reaction time affected the size and shape of clusters of primary nanoparticles. Nanofluids with different microstructures could be obtained by changing the synthesis parameters. The thermal conductivities of CuO nanofluids increased with the increase of particle loading

Ultrasonication effects on thermal and rheological properties of carbon nanotube suspensions

The preparation of nanofluids is very important to their thermophysical properties. Nanofluids with the same nanoparticles and base fluids can behave differently due to different nanofluid preparation methods. The agglomerate sizes in nanofluids can significantly impact the thermal conductivity and viscosity of nanofluids and lead to a different heat transfer performance. Ultrasonication is a common way to break up agglomerates and promote dispersion of nanoparticles into base fluids. However, research reports of sonication effects on nanofluid properties are limited in the open literature. In this work, sonication effects on thermal conductivity and viscosity of carbon nanotubes (0.5 wt%) in an ethylene glycol-based nanofluid are investigated. The corresponding effects on the agglomerate sizes and the carbon nanotube lengths are observed. It is found that with an increased sonication time/energy, the thermal conductivity of the nanofluids increases nonlinearly, with the maximum enhancement of 23% at sonication time of 1,355 min. However, the viscosity of nanofluids increases to the maximum at sonication time of 40 min, then decreases, finally approaching the viscosity of the pure base fluid at a sonication time of 1,355 min. It is also observed that the sonication process not only reduces the agglomerate sizes but also decreases the length of carbon nanotubes. Over the current experimental range, the reduction in agglomerate size is more significant than the reduction of the carbon nanotube length. Hence, the maximum thermal conductivity enhancement and minimum viscosity increase are obtained using a lengthy sonication, which may have implications on application

B-spline collocation simulation of non-linear transient magnetic nanobio-tribological squeeze-film flow

A mathematical model is presented for magnetized nanofluid bio-tribological squeeze film flow between two approaching disks. The nanofluid comprises a suspension of metal oxide nanoparticles with an electrically-conducting base fluid, making the nano-suspension responsive to applied magnetic field. The governing viscous momentum, heat and species (nano-particle) conservation equations are normalized with appropriate transformations which renders the original coupled, nonlinear partial differential equation system into a more amenable ordinary differential boundary value problem. The emerging model is shown to be controlled by a number of parameters, viz nanoparticle volume fraction, squeeze number, Hartmann magnetic body force number, disk surface transpiration parameter, Brownian motion parameter, thermophoretic parameter, Prandtl number and Lewis number. Computations are conducted with a B-spline collocation numerical method. Validation with previous homotopy solutions is included. The numerical spline algorithm is shown to achieve excellent convergence and stability in nonlinear bio-tribological boundary value problems. The interaction of heat and mass transfer with nanofluid velocity characteristics is explored. In particular smaller nanoparticle (high Brownian motion parameter) suspensions are studied. The study is relevant to enhanced lubrication performance in novel bio-sensors and intelligent knee joint (orthopaedic) systems

Finite element computation of transient dissipative double diffusive magneto-convective nanofluid flow from a rotating vertical porous surface in porous media

This paper aimed to investigate the transient dissipative MHD double diffusive free convective boundary layer flow of electrically-conducting nanofluids from a stationary or moving vertical porous surface in a rotating high permeability porous medium, considering buoyancy, thermal radiation and first order chemical reaction. Thermo-diffusion (Soret) and diffuso-thermal (Dufour) effects are also considered. Darcy’s law is employed. The mathematical model is formulated by considering water-based nanofluids containing metallic nano-particles for both stationary and moving plate cases. Three nanofluids are examined, namely copper, aluminium oxide or titanium oxide in water. The transformed non-linear, coupled, dimensionless partial differential equations describing the flow are solved with physically appropriate boundary conditions by using Galerkin weighted residual scheme. For prescribed permeability, numerical results are presented graphically for the influence of a number of emerging parameters. Validation of finite element solutions for skin friction and Nusselt number is achieved via comparison with the previously published work as special cases of the present investigation and very good correlation obtained. Increasing rotational parameter is observed to reduce both primary and secondary velocity components. Primary and secondary velocities are consistently elevated with increasing Soret, Dufour, thermal Grashof and solutal Grashof numbers. Increasing Schmidt number, chemical reaction and suction parameter both suppress nano - particle concentration whereas the converse behavior is computed with increasing Soret number. The study is relevant to high temperature rotating chemical engineering systems exploiting magnetized nanofluids and also electromagnetic nanomaterial manufacturing processes

Preparation and characterization of carbon nanofluid by a plasma arc nanoparticles synthesis system

Heat dissipation from electrical appliances is a significant issue with contemporary electrical devices. One factor in the improvement of heat dissipation is the heat transfer performance of the working fluid. In this study, we used plasma arc technology to produce a nanofluid of carbon nanoparticles dispersed in distilled water. In a one-step synthesis, carbon was simultaneously heated and vaporized in the chamber, the carbon vapor and particles were then carried to a collector, where cooling furnished the desired carbon/water nanofluid. The particle size and shape were determined using the light-scattering size analyzer, SEM, and TEM. Crystal morphology was examined by XRD. Finally, the characterization include thermal conductivity, viscosity, density and electric conductivity were evaluated by suitable instruments under different temperatures. The thermal conductivity of carbon/water nanofluid increased by about 25% at 50°C compared to distilled water. The experimental results demonstrated excellent thermal conductivity and feasibility for manufacturing of carbon/water nanofluids

Investigation on two abnormal phenomena about thermal conductivity enhancement of BN/EG nanofluids

The thermal conductivity of boron nitride/ethylene glycol (BN/EG) nanofluids was investigated by transient hot-wire method and two abnormal phenomena was reported. One is the abnormal higher thermal conductivity enhancement for BN/EG nanofluids at very low-volume fraction of particles, and the other is the thermal conductivity enhancement of BN/EG nanofluids synthesized with large BN nanoparticles (140 nm) which is higher than that synthesized with small BN nanoparticles (70 nm). The chain-like loose aggregation of nanoparticles is responsible for the abnormal increment of thermal conductivity enhancement for the BN/EG nanofluids at very low particles volume fraction. And the difference in specific surface area and aspect ratio of BN nanoparticles may be the main reasons for the abnormal difference between thermal conductivity enhancements for BN/EG nanofluids prepared with 140- and 70-nm BN nanoparticles, respectively

Constructal blade shape in nanofluids

Blade configuration of nanofluids has been proven to perform much better than dispersed configuration for some heat conduction systems. The analytical analysis and numerical calculation are made for the cylinder--shaped and regular-rectangular-prism--shaped building blocks of the blade-configured heat conduction systems (using nanofluids as the heat conduction media) to find the optimal cross-sectional shape for the nanoparticle blade under the same composing materials, composition ratio, volumetric heat generation rate, and total building block volume. The regular-triangular-prism--shaped blade has been proven to perform better than all the other three kinds of blades, namely, the regular-rectangular-prism--shaped blade, the regular-hexagonal-prism--shaped blade, and the cylinder--shaped blade. Thus, the regular-triangular-prism--shaped blade is selected as the optimally shaped blade for the two kinds of building blocks that are considered in this study. It is also proven that the constructal cylinder--regular-triangular-prism building block performs better than the constructal regular-rectangular-prism--regular-triangular-prism building block