Research and development of measurement device for thermal conductivity of nanofluids

This research aims to develop a device for measuring thermal conductivity of nanofluid using transient hot-wire methodology. The proposed measurement system comprises of sensing wires coupled with an electrical measurement unit kept in a constant-temperature environment. The wires are made of nickel-chromium alloy a coating with Teflon for insulation. Enhanced ratio of thermal conductivity in a nanofluid is calculated from the difference in electrical parameters with and without CuO nanoparticles added. The results show that thermal conductivities are enhanced by 5.8% and 9.6% when CuO nanoparticles of 1.1%wt and 2.2%wt are added, respectively. Resultant data was then compared with that obtained by two other measurement devices. The difference in measurements was within 5%. This proves that the system developed in this study can perform effective measurement of thermal conductivity of nanofluids.