Analytical solutions for nusselt number in thermally fully developed electroosmotic flow of a nanofluid in a microchannel

Abstract

It is well known that the presence of a stable colloidal suspension of nanometric solid particles changes the thermophysical properties of a fluid, and hence affects its heat transfer characteristics. Recent experiments have shown that thermal conductivity of a nanofluid increases with decreasing grain size of the suspended nanoparticles. In the present study, thermally fully developed and electrooscmotically driven nanofluid flow in a parallel plate micro-channel is analyzed, under the conditions of constant wall heat flux. The properties of the nanofluid are taken to be functions of the volume fraction of the nanoparticles being present in the flow. As an outcome of the study, closed form expressions are obtained, depicting the dependence of Nusselt number on the particle volume fraction, as a function of the imposed electrical field and the wall heat flux.