Measurement and Model Validation of Nanofluid Specific Heat Capacity with Differential Scanning Calorimetry

• Main Authors: O'Hanley, Harrison F. (Contributor), Buongiorno, Jacopo (Contributor), McKrell, Thomas J. (Contributor), Hu, Lin-Wen (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (Contributor), MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Pub. Corp., 2012-08-09T14:51:07Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 Nanofluids are being considered for heat transfer applications; therefore it is important to know their thermophysical properties accurately. In this paper we focused on nanofluid specific heat capacity. Currently, there exist two models to predict a nanofluid specific heat capacity as a function of nanoparticle concentration and material. Model I is a straight volume-weighted average; Model II is based on the assumption of thermal equilibrium between the particles and the surrounding fluid. These two models give significantly different predictions for a given system. Using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), a robust experimental methodology for measuring the heat capacity of fluids, the specific heat capacities of water-based silica, alumina, and copper oxide nanofluids were measured. Nanoparticle concentrations were varied between 5 wt% and 50 wt%. Test results were found to be in excellent agreement with Model II, while the predictions of Model I deviated very significantly from the data. Therefore, Model II is recommended for nanofluids.