Viscosity of alumina nanoparticles dispersed in car engine coolant

Journal Article · Wed Sep 15 04:00:00 EDT 2010 · Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/J.EXPTHERMFLUSCI.2009.12.009· OSTI ID:21320534

Kole, Madhusree; Dey, T K ^[1]

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1. Thermophysical Measurements Laboratory, Cryogenic Engineering Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721 302 (India)

The present paper, describes our experimental results on the viscosity of the nanofluid prepared by dispersing alumina nanoparticles (<50 nm) in commercial car coolant. The nanofluid prepared with calculated amount of oleic acid (surfactant) was tested to be stable for more than 80 days. The viscosity of the nanofluids is measured both as a function of alumina volume fraction and temperature between 10 and 50 C. While the pure base fluid display Newtonian behavior over the measured temperature, it transforms to a non-Newtonian fluid with addition of a small amount of alumina nanoparticles. Our results show that viscosity of the nanofluid increases with increasing nanoparticle concentration and decreases with increase in temperature. Most of the frequently used classical models severely under predict the measured viscosity. Volume fraction dependence of the nanofluid viscosity, however, is predicted fairly well on the basis of a recently reported theoretical model for nanofluids that takes into account the effect of Brownian motion of nanoparticles in the nanofluid. The temperature dependence of the viscosity of engine coolant based alumina nanofluids obeys the empirical correlation of the type: log ({mu}{sub nf}) = A exp(BT), proposed earlier by Namburu et al. (author)

• OSTI ID: 21320534
• Journal Information: Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, Journal Name: Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 34; ISSN 0894-1777; ISSN ETFSEO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
ALUMINIUM OXIDES
AUTOMOBILES
BROWNIAN MOVEMENT
COOLANTS
CORRELATIONS
ENGINES
FLUIDS
NANOSTRUCTURES
Nanofluids
OLEIC ACID
PARTICLES
STABILITY
SURFACTANTS
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0273-0400 K
VISCOSITY
VOLUME
Volume fraction