Abstract:
Experiments were carried out for studying volumetric thermal expansion behavior of various nanofluids in order to evaluate their potential application in heat removal systems employing natural convection as mode of heat removal. For this purpose, various nanoparticles such as Al$_2$O$_3$, CuO, SiO$_2$ and TiO$_2$ were used, which were suspended in the base fluid (water) by ultrasonication. All nanofluids had the same concentration of 1 wt%. Each nanofluid was heated from room temperature to a maximum of about 60$^\circ$C and the increase in volume due to heat addition was recorded. The volumetric thermal expansion due to heating for each nanofluid was compared to that for the base fluid for same increase in the temperature. The volumetric thermal expansion coefficient was evaluated from the measured data. Surprisingly, it was found that the nanofluids have greater volumetric thermal expansion coefficients as compared to that of the base fluid. 1The text was submitted by the authors in English.
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