Effective Viscosity Measurement of CuO and ZnO Nanofluids

Nanofluid has the promising potential for enhancing the heat transfer performance of conventional fluids. Several experimental and numerical attempts have been made earlier to investigate its important thermo physical properties like thermal conductivity and viscosity. The findings and results are quite disperse instead of reaching a definitive agreement. This paper presents effective viscosity measurements of CuO and ZnO nanofluids experimentally. A Brookfield viscometer model DV-I Prime with a CPE 40 cone has been used to determine the effective viscosity of nanofluids. The measurements have included the effect of volume concentration of nanoparticles and temperature. The experimental results are compared with several experimental and theoretical models available in the existing literature. From the obtained experimental results it can be concluded that the viscosity values of the above mentioned nanofluids has a tendency to increase with increase of nanoparticle concentration and follows a decreasing trend with an increase in temperature. Presented results can be used to define the above mentioned nanofluids within the experimental volume concentration range in CFD software package and hence to predict overall heat transfer performance using these nanofluids.