Experimental studies on the viscosity of fe nanoparticles dispersed in ethylene glycol and water mixture

Abstract

In this paper, experimental studies are conducted in order to measure the viscosity of Fe nanoparticles dispersed in various weight concentrations (25/75%, 45/55% and 55/45%) of ethylene glycol and water (EG-water) mixture. The experimental measurements are performed at various volume concentrations up to 2% and temperatures ranging from 10 °C to 60 °C. The experimental results disclose that the viscosity of nanofluids increases with increase in Fe particle volume fraction, and decreases with increase in temperature. Maximum enhancement in viscosity of nanofluids is 2.14 times for 55/45% EG-water based nanofluid at 2% volume concentration compared to the base fluid. Moreover, some comparisons between experimental results and theoretical models are drawn. It is also observed that the prior theoretical models do not estimate the viscosity of nanofluid accurately. Finally, a new empirical correlation is proposed to predict the viscosity of nanofluids as a function of volume concentration, temperature, and the viscosity of base fluid.