Title: Thermal conductivity and flow properties analysis of nanofluids based on the Lennard-Jones potential model

Authors: Jianfeng Wan; Wenyan Bi

Addresses: School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo, 454000, China; School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200093, China ' School of Physics and Chemistry, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo, 454000, China; School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221000, China

Abstract: Compared with traditional heat transfer fluids, thermal conductivity of nanofluids was greatly increased. The reason was researched with the method of molecular dynamics. To test validity of the model and the algorithms, thermal conductivity of liquid argon at 86 K was studied as simulation examples first. Several different potential energy models had been applied to characterise copper atomic interactions. The first condition simulated with periodic boundary conditions was only one nanoparticle existing in the simulated field which could rule collisions and the aggregation effect of nanoparticles out completely. Second, to study the influence of collisions and aggregation of nanoparticles to thermal conductivity and shear viscosity of nanofluids, the paper simulated conditions in which existed multiple nanoparticles. From the simulation and calculation, it can be concluded that the increase of the thermal conductivity and shear viscosity is different with type of aggregates formed by nanoparticles.

Keywords: nanofluids; thermal conductivity; shear viscosity; Lennard-Jones potential model; molecular dynamics; periodic boundary conditions; PBCs; simulation; flow properties; nanotechnology; nanoparticles.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNM.2013.056059

International Journal of Nanomanufacturing, 2013 Vol.9 No.3/4, pp.330 - 337

Received: 09 Oct 2012
Accepted: 16 Feb 2013
Published online: 31 Mar 2014 *

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