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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 99 » Issue 9
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 095901 (2007) [4 pages]

Mean-Field Versus Microconvection Effects in Nanofluid Thermal Conduction

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Jacob Eapen*, Wesley C. Williams, Jacopo Buongiorno, Lin-wen Hu, and Sidney Yip
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

Roberto Rusconi and Roberto Piazza
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Nucleare, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milano, Italy

Received 4 February 2007; published 28 August 2007

Transient hot-wire data on thermal conductivity of suspensions of silica and perfluorinated particles show agreement with the mean-field theory of Maxwell but not with the recently postulated microconvection mechanism. The influence of interfacial thermal resistance, convective effects at microscales, and the possibility of thermal conductivity enhancements beyond the Maxwell limit are discussed.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.095901
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.095901
PACS:
66.60.+a, 44.35.+c, 65.80.+n, 68.08.−p

*eapen@lanl.gov

Present address: Theoretical Division (T-12), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545.

 
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