ABSTRACT
Recent advances in nanotechnology have led to the development of a new, innovative class of heat transfer fluids created by dispersing nanoparticles in traditional heat transfer fluids. In contrast to research investigations related to forced convective heat transfer using nanofluids, few studies are found in the literature on the use of nanofluids in natural convective heat transfer. Currently, there are no reliable theoretical models to determine the anomalous thermal conductivity of nanofluids. Different models of viscosity have been used by researchers to model the effective viscosity of nanofluid as a function of volume fraction. Models of the effective viscosity of nanofluids based on the experimental data are limited to certain nanofluids. A wide range of experimental and theoretical studies were conducted in the literature to model thermal conductivity of nanofluids. Several experimental studies were conducted in the literature to measure the thermal conductivity of nanofluids using different techniques such as transient hot wire, steady-state parallel plates, and temperature oscillation.
