A Comparison of Empirical Correlations of Viscosity and Thermal Conductivity of Water-Ethylene Glycol-Al2O3 Nanofluids

Because of their superb thermal conductivity, nanofluids are seen as new generation of cooling mediums in many engineering applications. It is well established that even a small amount of nanoparticles mixed with a base fluid may result in distinct thermal conductivity enhancement. On the other hand, addition of nanoparticles to the base fluid results in its substantial viscosity increase. Therefore, it is very difficult to evaluate the relative importance of viscosity and thermal conductivity of the nanofluid on convective heat transfer performance. In order to estimate such resultant impact properly, it is necessary to develop reliable correlation equations for predictions of these two thermophysical properties of nanofluids. In this paper, the thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of five fluids, i.e., pure water, ethylene glycol (EG) and three mixtures of water and EG with volume ratio of 40:60, 50:50 and 60:40 have been experimentally determined. The aforementioned fluids served as base fluids in nanofluids with Al2O3 nanoparticles at the concentration of 0.01%, 0.1% and 1% by weight. A set of 20 correlations for prediction of thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of base fluids and corresponding nanofluids has been developed. Moreover, present results have been confronted with literature data and predictions made by use of carefully selected recognized literature correlations.