Temperature dependent rheological property of copper oxide nanoparticles suspension (nanofluid)

A nanofluid is the dispersion of metallic solid particles of nanometer size in a base fluid such as water or ethylene glycol. The presence of these nanoparticles affects the physical properties of a nanofluid via various factors including shear stress, particle loading, and temperature. In this paper the rheological behavior of copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles of 29 nm average diameter dispersed in deionized (DI) water is investigated over a range of volumetric solids concentrations of 5 to 15% and various temperatures varying from 278-323 degrees K. These experiments showed that these nanofluids exhibited time-independent pseudoplastic and shear-thinning behavior. The suspension viscosities of nanofluids decrease exponentially with respect to the shear rate. Suspension viscosity follows the correlation in the form In(mu(s))=A(1/T)-B, where constants A and B are the functions of volumetric concentrations. The calculated viscosities from the developed correlations and experimental values were found to be within +/- 10% of their values.