Evaluation of the Temperature Oscillation Technique to Calculate Thermal Conductivity of Water and Systematic Measurement of the Thermal Conductivity of Aluminum Oxide – Water Nanofluid

A nanofluid is a fluid containing suspended solid particles, with sizes of the order of nanometers. The nanofluids are better conductors of heat than the base fluid itself. Therefore it is of interest to measure the effective thermal conductivity of such a nanofluid. We use temperature oscillation technique to measure the thermal conductivity of the nanofluid. However, first we evaluate the temperature oscillation technique as a tool to measure thermal conductivity of water. Then we validate our experimental setup by measuring the thermal conductivity of the aluminum oxide-water nanofluid and comparing our results with previously published work. Finally, we do a systematic series of measurements of the thermal conductivities of aluminum oxide-water nanofluids at various temperatures and explain the reasons behind the dependence of the enhancement in thermal conductivity of the nanofluid on temperature.