Interaction Effect of Particles on Nanofluid Flow in Microtubes
Huei Chu Weng and Wen-Jie Huang
This paper presents a study on the interaction effect of particles on nanofluid flow through microtubes of radii 140 and 231 μm. A flow model is firstly built and solved by using the marching implicit (MI) procedure. A stable water-based magnetite (Fe3O4) nanofluid is then prepared, and a flow test system is further designed, so as to investigate the role of particle interaction in microflow characteristics. The results reveal that the particle interaction effect is to increase the pressure drop (or reduce the volume flow rate). The role of particle interaction becomes more significant when the particle volume fraction increases or the tube size decreases. The collision and friction between particles and tube wall could be found to dominate the role as a major interaction for a sufficiently small tube size and to result in a dramatic increase in effective viscosity.
Keywords: Microfluidics, nanofluids, particle interaction, particle concentration, apparent viscosity, poiseuille flow, finite difference