Experimental and COMSOL Multiphysics Modeling of Nanofluids Thermal Conductivity Using 3ω Method

In this work tackles experimentally and by COMSOL Multiphysics (C.M) numerical modeling using 3 omega method, the effects of temperature on thermal conductivity of MWCNT/Glycerol and MWCNT/(50 %Water/50 %Glycerol) nanofluids. The experiments were performed at temperatures ranging from 20 degrees C to 40 degrees C employing different base fluids (including Water, Glycerol, Ethylene Glycol, 50 %Water/50 %Glycerol) and nanofluids (MWCNT/Glycerol and MWCNT/ (50 %Water/50 %Glycerol)), to extract the influence of MWCNT nano-objects on the thermal conductivity behavior of the base fluids. Our approach is based on the heat transfer process between the fluid sample and sinusoidal heating source using synchronous detection to measure the conductive-convective exchange coefficient. We used COMSOL Multiphysics to design the experimental set-up and to reproduce the results of thermal conductivity of the different nanofluid samples. Then the experimental values of thermal conductivity obtained by 3 omega method are compared with those reproduced by COMSOL Multiphysics simulation and semi-empirical models.