Molecular dynamics study of oil type and volume ratio of nanoparticles on the thermal behavior of nanorefrigerants

Abstract

Due to the importance and efficiency of heat transfer in industrial equipment, studying refrigerants to improve their efficiency in heating or cooling was attracted much attention. In this paper, the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is employed to study the refrigerant heat transfer capability inside an nanochannel. The thermal performance of simulated samples is examined by changing the heat flux (HF) and thermal conductivity (TC). The results reveal that after 10 ns, the TCs of the oils based on ester and hydrocracked were reached to 0.14 and 0.33 W/m.K, and the HFs were reached to 511 and 793 W/m2, respectively. The obtained results indicate a better thermal behavior for hydrocracked oil, which can also transfer more heat. Therefore, the hydrocracked was chosen as the based oil for the rest of the research. On the other hand, different percentages of Cu and Fe3O4 hybrid nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes are added to the hydrocracked oil. By increasing the nanoparticles’ percentage from 1 to 4%, the HF increases from 792 to 911 W/m2, and the TC also raises from 0.40 to 0.52 W/m.K. According to the results, adding the hybrid nanoparticles into the oil sample improves its thermal behavior. It is hoped that the obtained results in this research can be useful and applicable in the industry fields.

Keywords

• Nanoparticle
• Refrigerant
• Thermal behavior
• Molecular dynamics simulation