Abstract
Controlling thermal loads in heat transfer systems that produce high heat flux is a real mechanical challenge. Various cooling/heating techniques are available to achieve the reliability requirements of electronic devices. Among them, the use of nanofluids is one of the important techniques that provide long term stability, higher cooling rates, decreased pumping power needs, and cost-effectiveness. Instability in fluids typically occurs when a disturbance affects the equilibrium of forces of external, inertial, or viscous origin acting on a system. The disturbances may arise from the surroundings due to small changes in the boundary conditions, surface roughness, free stream turbulence, noise, etc. In several circumstances, these disturbances are very small and hence cannot be measured with the available instruments but can be observed after the instability sets in. In this study, we focus on examining the effect of time-periodic vertical gravity modulation on the initiation of natural convection in a porous medium saturated with a nanofluid. The porous medium is characterized by being heated at the bottom and possessing anisotropic properties in terms of permeability and thermal diffusivity. Specifically, we investigate the onset of convection in water-based nanofluids that contain metallic (Cu) and metal oxide ( A l 2 O 3 ) particles. The Khanafer-Vafai-Lightstone (KVL) nanofluid model is employed to describe the behavior of the nanofluids, and the thresholds for convective instability are determined using the Mathieu functions. In addition, we study the instabilities of synchronous and subharmonic modes and explore their transitions along with practical applications.
Published Version
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