Pressure-Drop Viscosity Measurements for -Al₂O₃ Nanoparticles in Water and PG-Water Mixtures (Nanofluids)

Nanofluids have attracted wide attention because of their promising thermal applications. Compared with the base fluid, numerous experiments have generally indicated increases in effective thermal conductivity and convective heat transfer coefficient for suspensions having only a small amount of nanoparticles. It is also known that with the presence of nanoparticles, the viscosity of a nanofluid is greater than its base fluid and deviates from Einstein's classical prediction. However, only a few groups have reported nanofluid viscosity results to date. Therefore, relative viscosity data for -Al₂O₃ nanoparticles in DI-water and propylene glycol/H₂O mixtures are presented here based on pressure drop measurements of flowing nanofluids. Results indicate that with constant wall heat flux, the relative viscosities of nanofluid decrease with increasing volume flow rate. The results also show, based on Brenner's model, that the nanofluid viscosity can be explained in part by the aspect ratio of the aggregates.