Heat Transfer Characteristics of Nano-Fluids

Nanofluids are engineered colloids made of a base fluid and nanoparticles, which become potential candidate for next generation heat transfer medium. Nanofluids have higher thermal conductivity and single-phase heat transfer coefficients than their base fluids. The use of additives is a technique applied to enhance the heat transfer performance of base fluids. Recent articles address the unique features of nanofluids, such as enhancement of heat transfer, improvement in thermal conductivity, increase in surface volume ratio, Brownian motion, thermophoresis, etc. A complete understanding about the heat transfer enhancement in forced convection in laminar and turbulent flow with nanofluids is necessary for the practical applications. There are many controversies and inconsistencies in reported arguments and experimental results on various thermal characteristics such as effective thermal conductivity, convective heat transfer coefficient and boiling heat transfer rate of nanofluids. As of today, researchers have mostly focused on anomalous thermal conductivity of nanofluids. Although investigations on boiling, droplet spreading, and convective heat transfer are very important in order to exploit nanofluids as the next generation coolants, considerably less efforts have been made on these major features of nanofluids. This review summarizes recent research on fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of nanofluids in forced and free convection flows and identifies opportunities for future research.