Constructal structure of nanofluids

Abstract

The present work considers the problem of further enhancing nanofluids performance inside practical systems through designing their inside structures. Constructal analysis is performed up to the two-branching level on the classical blade-configured disk-shaped domain with central heat sink, adiabatic periphery and uniform heat generation. Transition point from one-branching-level to two-branching-level blade configuration is found. The effects of thermal conductivity ratio and overall volume fraction of blade material on nondimensional constructal overall temperature difference are found to appear always in the form of their product. The number of tributaries does not affect the system performance. Constructal robustness is also observed. Compared with the dispersed configuration under same conditions, this orderly-arranged blade configuration generates much smaller constructal overall temperature difference and thus performs much better for the heat conduction domain considered. Therefore, searching for better and better heat-flow structure is significant to performance. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.