Akira Nakayama

Rayleigh–Bénard convection in liquids with nanoparticles is studied in the paper considering a two-phase model for nanoliquids with thermophysical properties determined from phenomenological laws and mixture theory. In the absence of nanoparticle-modified thermophysical properties as used in the paper, the problem is essentially binary liquid convection with Soret effect. The base liquids chosen for investigation are water, ethylene glycol, engine oil, and glycerine, and the nanoparticles chosen are copper, copper oxide, silver, alumina, and titania. Using data on these 20 nanoliquids, our theoretical model clearly explains advanced onset of convection in nanoliquids in comparison with that in the base liquid without nanoparticles. The paper sets to rest the tentativeness regarding the boundary condition to be chosen in the study of Rayleigh–Bénard convection in nanoliquids. The effect of thermophoresis is to destabilize the system and so is the effect of other parameters arising due to nanoparticles. However, Brownian motion effect does not have a say on onset of convection. In the case of nonlinear theory, the five-mode Lorenz model is derived under the assumptions of Boussinesq approximation and small-scale convective motions, and using it enhancement of heat transport due to the presence of nanoparticles is clearly explained for steady-state motions. Subcritical motion is shown to be possible in all 20 nanoliquids.

An analytical consideration has been made to explore the velocity, temperature and nanoparticle distributions and heat transfer characteristics associated with thermal dispersion and nanoparticle mechanical dispersion within a nanofluid-saturated homogeneous metal foam. A volume-averaging theory was rigorously applied to integrate locally a set of governing equations based on the modified Buongiorno model at the pore scale. Thus, a macroscopic set of volume-averaged governing equations were derived allowing interstitial heat transfer between the nanofluid and metal phases. Unknown terms were modelled mathematically to obtain a closed set of volume-averaged governing equations. Subsequently, a pore-scale analysis was carried out to find possible functional forms for describing thermal dispersion and nanoparticle mechanical dispersion in a nanofluid-saturated metal foam. Using the resulting set of volume-averaged governing equations, forced convective flows in nanofluid-saturated metal foams were analytically investigated for the steady-state case. Eventually, it has been predicted that an unconventionally high level of the heat transfer rate (about 80 times more than the case of base fluid convection without a metal foam) may be achieved by combination of metal foam and nanofluid.

Thermal dispersion is an important topic in the convective heat transfer in porous media. In order to determine the heat transfer in a packed bed, the effective thermal conductivity including both stagnant and dispersion thermal conductivities should be known. Several theoretical and experimental studies have been performed on the determination of the effective thermal conductivity. The aim of this study is to review the experimental studies done on the determination of the effective thermal conductivity of the packed beds. In this study, firstly brief information on the definition of the thermal dispersion is presented and then the reported experimental studies on the determination of the effective thermal conductivity are summarized and compared. The reported experimental methods are classified into three groups: (1) heat addition/removal at the lateral boundaries, (2) heat addition at the inlet/outlet boundary, (3) heat addition inside the bed. For each performed study, the experimental details, methods, obtained results, and suggested correlations for the determination of the effective thermal conductivity are presented. The similarities and differences between experimental methods and reported studies are shown by tables. Comparison of the correlations for the effective thermal conductivity is made by using figures and the results of the studies are discussed.

A theoretical answer to the controversial issue on the anomalous convective heat transfer in nanofluids has been provided, exploiting the Buongiorno model for convective heat transfer in nanofluids with modifications to fully account for the effects of nanoparticle volume fraction distributions on the continuity, momentum, and energy equations. A set of exact solutions have been obtained for hydrodynamically and thermally fully developed laminar nanofluid flows in channels and tubes, subject to constant heat flux. From the solutions, it has been concluded that the anomalous heat transfer rate, exceeding the rate expected from the increase in thermal conductivity, is possible in such cases as titania–water nanofluids in a channel, alumina–water nanofluids in a tube and also titania–water nanofluids in a tube. Moreover, the maximum Nusselt number based on the bulk mean nanofluid thermal conductivity is captured when the ratio of Brownian and thermophoretic diffusivities is around 0.5, which can be exploited for designing nanoparticles for high-energy carriers.

A porous media approach based on the volume-averaging theory has been proposed to investigate solute diffusion and ultrafiltration processes associated with hemodialysis using a hollow fiber membrane dialyzer. A general set of macroscopic governing equations has been derived for the three individual phases, namely, the blood phase, the dialysate phase, and the membrane phase. Thus, conservations of mass, momentum, and species are considered for blood compartments, dialysate compartments, and membranes within a dialyzer to establish a three concentration equation model. These macroscopic equations can be simultaneously solved for the various cases of inlet velocities of blood and dialysate. An analytic expression for the solute clearance was obtained for the one-dimensional case, in which important dimensionless parameters controlling the dialyzer system are identified for the first time.