A numerical approach in describing ionanofluids behavior in laminar and turbulent flow

Abstract

Ionic liquids are a new class of fluids to be considered for heat transfer due to their remarkable thermophysical properties. Experimental researches on ionic liquids have increased over the last few years and, as an extension, a new class of heat transfer fluids, the ionanofluids were considered in some recent experimental studies. Ionanofluids consists in suspending little amounts of high conductive nanoparticles in ionic liquids. In spite of a lot of inconsistent reports—mainly due to the deficient understanding of the involved mechanisms—ionanofluids have been demonstrated as a new favorable heat transfer fluid. The enhanced thermal conductivity of ionanofluids over the basic ionic liquids is considered one of the driving factors for enhancing convection. Nonetheless, the thermal conductivity is the most studied parameter in spite of the important influence of viscosity variation on the convective flow. This numerical study employed Ansys Fluent commercial code and showed that a correct description of thermophysical properties may make ionanofluids a very promising new heat transfer fluid since the preliminary results are encouraging.