Engineering HDR Seminar Series (No.15, 2015): “Convective transport of nanoparticle-suspensions in micro-scale cooling devices”

Fri, 13 March, 11:00 – 12:00

Room 5422

The miniaturization and increased functionality of modern devices induce appreciably hike in the local temperature, leading to the extensive study on micro-scale convective heat transfer in order to improve the thermal management in a confined space. However, the low thermal conductivities of working fluids limit the compactness of heat exchangers. Nanofluid which is a novel type of engineered colloid consisting of suspended solid nanoparticles whose size ranges from 1 nm to 100 nm, garners the attention of researchers due to its notable enhanced heat transfer characteristics compared to those of conventional fluid. In the early stage of its discovery, investigations on the thermophysical behaviors of nanofluids have been the trend of the research in this field while the studies on micro-scale convective transport of nanofluid are comparatively scarce. Therefore, this thesis presents a comprehensive analytical analysis on the convective transport effects of nanoparticle-suspension in micro-scale cooling devices, aiming to scrutinize the performance of nanofluid in these devices from thermodynamics first-law and second-law point of views. Starting from basic physical law, theoretical models are developed to investigate the effects of streamwise conduction and viscous dissipation on the convective heat transfer of nanofluid in microchannel heat sink. The analysis would be then extended to the flow in thermal non-equilibrium porous media embedded in microchannel to scrutinize the performance of viscous-dissipative nanofluid flow under the effects of internal heat generations and thermal asymmetries. Contact details: Wan Nurul Rukiah Wan Rasdi wan.nurul@monash.edu@eng.monash.edu.my Tel: 03-55146224