Modified model for effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids containing carbon nanotubes

The expression for effective Thermal Conductivity (TC) of nanofluids containing Carbon Nanotubes (CNT), which can explain and predict all experimental data is developed and the simulation results are described. The TC nanofluids containing CNTs are predicted by including the effect of interfacial resistance between CNTs and the effect of entanglement in the model. The analytical model of CNTs suggests that average length efficiency (ALE), which denote the strength of entanglement, is a statistical quantity, which shows that the length distribution function of CNTs needs to be determined to give its value accurately. ALEs calculated from the model with experimental data of the effective TC of nanofluids show ALE is satisfied for all experimental data, which shows the feasibility of the model. The experiments show that the relation between TC enhancement and volume fraction of CNTs is strongly nonlinear.