Experimental study and sensitivity analysis of a new generation of special ternary hybrid nanofluids (THNFs) and investigation of factors affecting its thermal conductivity

Abstract

During this research, for the first time, one of the thermophysical properties (relative thermal conductivity or RTC) of a special ternary hybrid nanofluid (THNF) is investigated. The results show that MWCNT-MgO-ZnO (15:50:35)/water THNFs have a suitable RTC and depend on temperature (T) and solid volume fraction (SVF) components. The RTC value in the optimal test case is equal to 32.70% and in the lowest value was 0.6%. In this study, in addition to laboratory studies, using the response surface methodology (RSM), the experimental results are predicted and a new relationship with the coefficient of determination R 2 = 0.9959 is presented. The correlation between the proposed relationship and the experimental results is very good, which indicates the high accuracy of the used model. An acceptable and very good standard margin of deviation (MOD) is reported in the approximate range of ±1.60. The results of sensitivity analysis show the sensitivity of the output to the values of the independent variables (inputs). The highest sensitivity of RTC was occurred at SVF = 2% and T = 30 °C, the value of which was determined to be +1.77%.